


The Shining Furrow

by primsong



Category: Doctor Who
Genre: Adventure, Cornwall, Gen, Sci-Fi, Tennyson, Third Doctor Era, fractals
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-10-11
Updated: 2010-10-11
Packaged: 2017-10-12 14:39:04
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 14
Words: 34,376
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/125922
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/primsong/pseuds/primsong
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>An out-of-season meteorite in Trelissick, Cornwall, a missing man and missing ferns; Three and Jo have a puzzling, dangerous riddle to solve. Third Doctor, with Jo Grant, Benton and Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Prologue

**Author's Note:**

> A/N:
> 
> This tale, quite strangely, arose from reading one of my favorite classic poems by Tennyson. I expect the storyline is not even remotely like anything Tennyson had in mind when he penned it, but nonetheless I have used it for my guide. You will find its lines at the opening for each of the chapters. Apologies to any non-whovian Tennyson-lovers.
> 
> Photos of Trelissick tower and the Fal may be found at Folly Towers.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  _I apologize for any confusion in the chapter numbering, as AO3 doesn't seem to allow me to have a prologue without it being considered a chapter, so the 'number' assigned at the top will be one off throughout (i.e. what they term "Chapter 3" would be Part 2)._

**The Shining Furrow**

 **Prologue**

The night was growing old, the early spring sky dotted by the few stars that shone through the scattered cloud cover. Trelissick Garden slept in the mists of its little creeks and rivers, resting at the head of the Fal Estuary. Miles of walking paths lay quiet and cool, ready for another day.

Fish were just beginning to stir for their early morning feeding, sleepily pulsing their gills under the sheltering roots of a shallow riverbank. The April night chill and misty, the waters of the Fal below shining soft in the near dawn light.

A streak of silver lit the sky, a meteor that flashed in glimpses through the clouds then suddenly shot through them. The air moaned in protest as it was pushed aside; trees lit briefly in the glare trembled in the muted explosion as the shining bolt violently struck the earth. The dark branches waved, young leaves spattering down.

Nearby creek waters slopped on their bank, fish thrashing and foaming, contorting in circles. After a moment they stilled, turning their bellies to the dimming stars. Amid the moist earth, the impacted crater gave a brief shrieking sound, upwelling, sizzled and was still.

Moments passed. Out of the crater, something unfolded like a flower blossoming, as if in mimicry of the rhododendron and camellia hanging heavy all about, overlapping oversized petals opened, wide banners formed of finest red frost.

Lifting up from the wreckage, it shimmered from red to silver light , blending with the mists. Tentatively tendrils reached out, touched the plants around it; tracing bleeding heart and hosta, thick heavy fern. It ran down the stems like water, branched onto the leaves. Stems twisted, glowed, broke apart into countless snowflakes of iridescence and vanished, fading away, leaving nothing where they had been.

Withdrawing into itself, it hesitated, then silently drifted up again. There were grasses and paths, another grove of ferns, sloping land and trees to explore.

\---

Up above the lawns and paths, the Trelissick manor house lay quiet, dark except for the few security lights that habitually lit the grounds against the night. One light suddenly winked out.

Darkly dressed, a man turned from knocking it out and set to work jimmying open one a french-doors, two reinforced felt sacks beside him betraying the intent of his plunder; the priceless private china collection held within.

Intent though he was on breaking open the door, he suddenly froze as a silvery webbing reflected in the glass before him. The strange drift of barely visible light hung in the air behind him. He spun around, his tools clanking to the flagstones and backed against the door in fear.

Ghostly, the alien light brightened around him, touched him, running up and down his limbs like water. The silver brightened, turning to golden bits tinged with red, red as rose petals or sparks of fire.

The would-be thief screamed, perhaps more from fear than pain, then contorted and cried out again more sharply as the webbing immobilized him.

Startled, the garden's night watchman came running, dodging around the columns of cypress that lined the walk, firming the grip on his billy-club as he came. Perhaps he took the strange glow for a lantern, for as he came around the corner he had no hesitation at all. An initial glance showed him a man lit apparently by firelight, dark dressed, the tools of burglary and looting about his feet.

For that briefest moment he was so incensed at the audacity of this man to try to break into the Manor on his watch that he reached out and grabbed at the back of his collar, in spite of the otherworldly light that surrounded him. His angry shout cut off as he registered the strangeness of this 'firelight.' In the space of a thought it swirled up to enclose him as well. The two men, locked together within the shining petals of gold and red faded to silver along with it, their forms breaking up into feathers of silver and fading away.


	2. Chapter 2

**Part 1**

 _Now sleeps the crimson petal, now the white;_

. . .

Under the quiet shelter of UNIT's headquarters, Jo Grant stirred in her sleep, curled as she was on the lumpy couch in the lab while the Doctor tinkered at the workbench nearby. The night had passed slowly for her, though he was barely aware of it passing at all, focused as he was on trying to get at part of his broken TARDIS to function.

"Ha! I have it!" he said, holding a wire up in the air while turning a knob with his other hand. "Wait…blast. Jo? Jo! I need you to hold this a moment, will you? I know you're awake."

Jo half sat up on the couch, pushing aside the Doctor's cloak that had been pressed into service as a blanket. She rubbed at her gritty eyes. "All right, so I am. Barely. What time is it?" She gave a small stretch. "Oh Doctor, it's morning for pity's sake! Are you still fussing with that whatchathingummy?"

He ignored her grumbling. "Come here and lend a hand. I think I have it."

Jo obligingly climbed up from the couch and came to the workbench where he handed her the wire he'd been holding up. "There. Now just keep it up like that. Higher, please. That's right."

She lifted her hand and looked at the wire suspiciously. "This isn't going to shock me or anything, is it?"

"Of course not," he said absently, turning the knob and carefully moving a thin probe over what appeared to her to be a random bit of TARDIS innards. There was a beep. He mumbled something to himself and started over again.

"Doctor!" Brigadier Alistair Lethbridge-Stewart called authoritatively as he pushed open the lab doors. "I've something to keep you busy."

"I'm already busy," the Doctor snapped, not taking his eyes from his experiment. "Go away."

"Good morning, Miss Grant," the Brigadier added politely. "Rather early for you to be here isn't it?"

"I haven't been home yet from yesterday," Jo said apologetically. There was a beep.

"Jo! Keep your hand up," the Doctor said.

"I slept on the couch," she added by way of explanation.

"I'm glad to hear the Doctor at least had the decency to let you sleep…that is, I trust he did and you didn't just collapse there of exhaustion," the Brigadier noted dryly. "You do realize you aren't required to humor him when he's like this?"

"Are you just going to keep nattering on or do you have something useful to say?" the Doctor growled. There was another beep. He turned the knob.

The Brigadier paused. "We've had a report come in. Some unusual events down in Cornwall. I'd like you to take a look into it."

"I'm busy."

"Yes, I can see that. As soon as you give up on that bit then?"

"Give up? Jo, move it to the right. Do you have any idea how delicate this is, Brigadier?"

"No, and I don't care to. I'd like to see you in my office within the hour if you please, Doctor."

 _Beep._

"To the left, Jo. Left again. Up. That's it."

"I'll send him up, Brigadier," Jo said with a smile.

"Right. Thank you Miss Grant. Good morning." He quirked a brow at his scientific advisor and marched back out.

"Really, Jo," the Doctor admonished more softly. "You'll send me up?" He looked up at her from his probing at the equipment. "I'm quite capable of finding my own way to the Brigadier's office in my own good time."

 _Beep._ She just looked at him and smiled, her hand in the air.

He sighed and laid down the probe. "Well, all right." He gave her a mock-severe look then suddenly gave her hair a light ruffling with his hand and smiled. "Go ahead and get yourself some breakfast. I'll go see what manner of bee the Brigadier has in his bonnet this time."

"Hopefully an interesting one, outdoors. Looks like a lovely day. Do you want me to bring you anything?" she asked as she set down the wire and headed for the door.

"No, no thank you. Well, perhaps some tea." He set down the probe, giving the parts a disappointed nudge, then followed her up the steps in a more staid manner to see the Brigadier.

. . .

"So," the Brigadier continued, as the Doctor leafed over the clipboard of papers he'd been handed. "As you can see, while there doesn't appear to be anything extreme, there's certainly something odd going on down there."

"Hm," the Doctor gave a small shrug. "A watchman disappears, leaving behind his billy-club and what appears to be evidence of an additional person who was intent on burglary. Isn't this something more along the lines of police-work, Brigadier?"

"You might think so at first, but take a look at the other report, that one there."

He raised a brow. "A meteorite?"

"Yes. Apparently it landed there, at the Trelissick estate sometime that same evening. The only witness we have was a man on his way to a job at a bakery, predawn hours."

"And?"

"All he could say was he saw it descend and heard it hit. Nothing more."

"Anyone living in the house that was being burglarized?"

"Not at the time, the family's gone to the Continent on holiday. We can reasonably surmise the burglar was aware of this."

The Doctor flipped briefly through the papers one more time and handed the clipboard back. "Well, a meteorite making it all the way down is a small novelty, but it happens from time to time. I'm really quite busy. Can't you send someone else out to have a look about?"

There was a tap at the door and Jo tentatively opened it. "Sorry, I just wanted to get the Doctor his tea while it's still hot. I brought an extra in case you'd like one too."

"Come in, Miss Grant," the Brigadier said. "Don't mind if I do. Thank you." He took a steaming cup from her and watched as she carefully handed the other to the Doctor.

"Thank you, Jo. As I was saying, Brigadier, I'll be glad to run an analysis on meteorite fragments, but I doubt it would concern UNIT."

"And I believe it might," Lethbridge-Stewart persisted. "For one thing, it doesn't seem like an abduction. At least two people are missing, the thief left all of his tools behind and never gained entry to the building itself. There's no sign of any scuffle beyond the immediate area. No calls for help, no ransom demands, no bodies laying about. Nothing."

Doctor sipped at his tea. Jo leaned on the wall beside his chair and nibbled an apple she'd brought from the canteen.

"And what concerns me more was the other details. There was some odd vandalism to the gardens themselves and descriptions of a strange frost on the area surrounding the portico."

"A strange frost? Strange how?"

"First that it isn't frost, obviously. Much too warm for it, and it doesn't melt. We had them leave it alone. The police had a brief go at all of this before they contacted us, but now they've roped it off. I want you to take a look."

"Where is this?" Jo asked.

"Trelissick, Miss Grant. A garden estate in Cornwall."

"Cornwall?" Jo looked at the Doctor hopefully.

"Well, I suppose…" the Doctor considered more slowly. He set aside his empty cup.

"Please, Doctor?" Jo wheedled beside him. "Please? It's such lovely weather, and it's a very nice drive."

"Not quite a pleasure drive. It'd take you a good four hours," the Brigadier noted with a frown.

"Yes, but that's much nicer than four hours in the lab."

"Jo!" the Doctor protested.

"Well, it is. At least in the springtime. Don't you want to get out and about, Doctor?"

"Yes. That's why I'm trying to fix my TARDIS."

She rolled her eyes. "You know that's not what I mean. Oh, do say yes to the poor old Brigadier, the fresh air would do you good." She reached out and gave his hand a little tug, as if she wanted to take him straight out the door right then.

The Brigadier allowed a faint smile to creep underneath his moustache as the Doctor visibly softened. Miss Grant could be very hard to resist when she was trying to be persuasive. The Doctor patted her hand where it clasped his.

"Oh…all right." He smiled warmly as Jo gave a little bounce, pleased at her pleasure. "We'll take Bessie. I need to see if she's running properly anyway."

"I'll go get freshened up, overnight bags are already packed…" she hopped up and headed for the door, looking back over her shoulder briefly. "I mean, if you don't need me for anything else?"

"No, no. Go on. Thank you Miss Grant," the Brigadier said sincerely, waving her on her way.

"Will you be coming also, Brigadier?"

"No, I regret that I can't. I've a meeting with some dignitaries I must tend to and a report for Geneva. I'll send Sergeant Benton down. I may be down later if I can get away, assuming there's anything worth seeing. Good luck, Doctor."


	3. Chapter 3

**Part 2**

 _Nor waves the cypress in the palace walk;_

. . .

"Ready?" the Doctor greeted Jo in the car park. He wore a freshly ruffled shirt with his black velvet jacket and favourite silk-lined travel cape, not seeming any worse the wear for lacking a night's sleep. She wished she could get by with as little as he seemed to.

"As ready as I can be," Jo conceded. He gave her a hand into the passenger seat and went around to the driver's side. She was pleased to see he'd put up Bessie's canopy; he didn't always remember that courtesy as the rain never seemed to bother him. It was a bright day, but it was still April after all; showers could come up with little warning.

The little roadster started with a purr. The Doctor smiled indulgently, patting the wheel before shifting it into gear. Jo snuggled down into her coat as they putted out the gates, bound for Cornwall.

. . .

"Jo?" the Doctor's voice came to her as his hand gently shook her shoulder. "Jo, we're there."

"Uhm?" she said, shifting sleepily. She rubbed her cheek on something warm and velvet then startled. She propped herself up, a little embarrassed as she realized she inadvertantly fallen asleep against him while they drove, not remembering much of anything outside of London. An apologetic yawn was only partly stifled. "I fell asleep!"

His voice was both gentle and humorous. "Yes, you most certainly did. Feeling better?"

"Uh, yes. I think so. Stiff neck. Sorry, I didn't mean to leave you without any company."

"That's all right. You were up late." He got out, turning in a circle to look the place over. Bessie was parked in a nearly vacant gravel car park with only a lone UNIT truck to keep her company. They were surrounded by an immaculately kept acreage, an austere white Grecian mansion standing nearby.

"Trelissick?" she asked, stretching and climbing out to join him. "I remember reading about it. Supposed to be nice gardens. I think there's an art gallery and boating or something too."

"Yes, well, we aren't here to play. We'll see what Sergeant Benton is up to and then have a lookabout, shall we?" He patted her shoulder and turned in a swirl of cape to pace towards the truck. Jo swatted at a mosquito and began to follow him.

"Hoy, Miss Grant!" came a friendly voice behind her. She turned, smiling at Sergeant Benton's cheerful face as he came walking down the drive. "Just putting up a sign to keep sightseers out. No more tours until this is cleared up of course."

"Of course, " she agreed, falling into step with him.

"How was your drive down?" he asked conversationally.

"I don't remember. I fell asleep," she admitted.

"In the Doc's Bessie? All the way? You must have been pretty tired out. I'd be afraid of falling out if it were me, the way he drives."

She laughed then hid it behind her hand as the Doctor came up to them.

"Looks like everyone's here in one piece. I see you've already deployed your men about the place, so Miss Grant and I will use what daylight we have left if you'll excuse us, Sergeant." He offered her his arm, which she took, Benton walking alongside them.

"The grounds are closed to the public until this is resolved," he said. "Looks like you have the run of the place, Doctor. We can open that mansion up if you want to take a look. Owners have already been questioned over the phone, they're on holiday, gone off to stay at some posh place on the Continent."

The Doctor glanced at the manor house and scanned the neat hedges, trees and shrubs around it. "Anything from them I should know about?"

"No, not most of it anyway, just the usual. You know, heard their man was gone, shocked someone was trying to break in and so on. But there was some odd vandalism to the gardens. I have that report here, from the head of their garden staff. Police interviewed him." He handed the Doctor a small sheaf of papers.

He flipped through them briefly. "Mm. Vandalism, you said? What sort of vandalism?"

"Seems there's been a bit of trouble with the ferns. Some are gone."

"Dug up?"

"No, according to him it's apparently like they were never there. Then there's another lot he says are looking a bit odd. That's the part I thought you'd like to see."

"Odd? In what way? Does he say where they are?"

"Here's a map," Benton said, turning one of the papers over. "He circled it…there it is. And there's the missing ones."

"Very well." The Doctor slipped the map out of the papers and handed back the rest. Jo took it from his hand to study it as they walked.

"I'll start seeing about someplace we can set up," Benton said, turning back to the truck.

"Thank you, Sergeant. Come along, Miss Grant, let's see what this garden is hiding."

"Trelissick is known for its subtropical plants," Jo summarized from the small print on the map as they mounted steps. "And it has a collection of hydrangeas…Belonged to a family called Spode who made fancy china. Apparently a nice view of the water as well."

"Look up and see for yourself," the Doctor commented.

"Oh, my. That's lovely!" she exclaimed as they came over a rise. A wide green lawn opened up before them with blooming shrubs and trees down below, the waters of the Fal Estuary glinting grey in the westering sun. "It must be simply hundreds of acres. I'm glad I'm not the gardener. Can you imagine weeding something like this?"

He chuckled. "That's one thing that's the same all the universe over. Weeding. You have the map, which way?"

"Oh, um. Left. That path over there."

Following the curve of the path down towards the water, they passed under several taller trees then paused to consult the map's circles one more time. It eventually led them to a wide patch of plain, brown dirt, the path arcing around it.

"I suppose this would be our missing ferns," said the Doctor. They stood and considered it. It seemed unimpressive, undisturbed and untilled. They rechecked the map.

"They were here? Why, it looks as if nothing has ever grown here at all." Jo said.

The Doctor knelt, flipping his cape back out of the way. He closely examined the bare ground. "Well, they did say they were gone. Look here. Holes." He carefully poked at one. "Exactly the dimensions they ought to be if a mature fern's stem and roots had been in them. But no disturbance. Neatly done. It's as if the entire plant simply faded out of existence. Not even any dead fronds left laying about."

"It's not…something like time-travel, is it?" Jo hesitantly asked. "Like when the TARDIS fades away?"

He raised his eyebrows and looked up at her. "It's an interesting thought, but no. In that case it would have been as if the fern had never grown here at all. It wouldn't have left these holes. No. Though it does make me wonder if they underwent some sort of chemical change. There's no sign of burning, yet they may have been consumed in some other manner." He rubbed his chin thoughtfully then drew a small bag out of his pocket and carefully scraped a little of the dirt around the edge of the small holes into it. "We'll see what comes up. Now. Where were those 'odd' ferns?"

. . .

The Doctor prodded at the green, convoluted mass before him.

"How unusual," he murmured. "Look at this, Jo." He gently pried at one of the large green balls with his fingertips.

"These are ferns?"

"Yes. Or they were."

"They look like a basket of yarn balls." Jo said, kneeling with him curiously.

"Odd."

"That's what that gardener fellow said."

"I can see why. It appears as if each individual fronds' individual leaflets produced more leaflets of its own." He carefully loosened one of the green knots. "Ferns within ferns, multiplying smaller each time in a repeating pattern. See? If you follow just one of them, you can watch it branching off until it's no larger than a thread. I wouldn't be surprised if it was down to the width of a single cell before it stopped."

"But what would make something like that happen?"

"I'll have to consider that very question, won't I?" he responded mildly. He drew a second small bag out of his pocket and broke off a sampling of the knotted fern for later examination. "Hopefully it will be something relatively benign."

"What about those missing men?" Jo asked, standing up and looking around them.

"Ah yes, we must keep them in mind too. Most intriguing." He brushed himself off and squinted briefly at the sky. "I'd like to take a look there before we run out of daylight. Let's see if our good Sergeant has found a proper place for my lab equipment, shall we?"

. . .

Only one soldier remained at the UNIT truck. The Doctor reached past him for the radio. "Come in Greyhound. This is the Doctor."

"I read you, Doctor," came Benton's voice. "Where are you? At the truck?"

"Where do you think? Look, I've found some specimens to examine, but I'll need my equipment set up to do so. Have you made any progress?"

"Anything dangerous?"

"No. But considering the way the fern grove was decimated, I think some precautionary measures would be prudent, yes. Tell us where you are and we'll be along shortly. And Sergeant, I expect something more than that schoolboy's toy microscope I noted when I was leaving."

"We'll do the best we can," Benton said, sounding slightly amused. "Come around the main path and follow the sign for the Old Water Tower. It's back near the entrance. Greyhound out."

"That was a very nice microscope," Jo pointed out as they headed for the path. "And you yourself had it on the list to be packed it in the truck before we left."

The Doctor smiled down at her. "Did I? Well, that was before I knew what we were dealing with." He ducked past a rhododendron that crowded out into the path and set off in a short-cut between the bushes.

"We're supposed to stay on the path," she chided, trotting a little to keep up with his long stride. "So you know what we're dealing with then?"

"No. But a better microscope might help. You never know."

. . .

"We've put you in a tower," Benton hailed as they came back up the slope. "Come over this way."

"An ivory one?" Jo asked as they approached.

"Sorry, plain rock I'm afraid, but it's got plenty of power if you don't mind the climb."

Trelissick's slate-roofed tower was indeed a sight from another time. It was, in fact, a double-tower, the smaller one housing the stairwell, the larger now furnished with three circular rooms, one per level.

"Oh my, look at that!" Jo said as it came into view. "Look, Doctor, it even has a squirrel for the weathervane. Groovy! How did I miss this coming in?"

"You were asleep," he reminded her as they passed through the walled garden to the entrance. The Doctor leaned on the doorsill and considered the inside of the rounded stone structure with its spiral stairs winding around the interior. Jo poked her head under his arm and peered up. "What fun," she smiled. "Like a fairy tale."

"They call it the Old Water Tower," Benton said from behind them as a soldier clattered down the steps and gave a brief salute. "Guess it gets rented out to tourist types who fancy a stay here. All done up with proper rooms above, and we've a table set up for your equipment. Unfortunately, the first two levels hadn't the power or drainage needed, so you're in the top. Lower ones will still work for a place to bunk."

"Thank you, Sergeant. Most efficient. Jo, would you mind taking a look? Make sure nothing was broken and test the power. I'm going to check that portico."

"Of course," she said, putting a hand to the bottom of the curved railing. "When you need to come up, just call and I'll toss down my hair."

The Doctor raised his brows in query.

"Rapunzel, Rapunzel!" Benton laughed. "You'll have to ask the Doc for a good hair-growing formula to do that one, Miss Grant."

"I don't think I'm up to it. Besides, it would pull. Always seemed silly; Rapunzel would've hated having people climbing her braids."

"No, she didn't mind at all," the Doctor corrected seriously. "As I recall, she was quite nice about it." He slipped off, leaving them to their puzzlement.

"You think he really met something like…?" Benton whispered.

Jo shrugged. "With him, who knows?"

. . .

The Doctor ducked under the bright tape that roped off the portico and slowly approached the french doors. He had faintly hoped they might have left it as it was, scattered tools and all, but the items were gone. Probably at the local police station. Still, it was worth a closer look.

Noting the odd shine to portions of the flagstones he carefully knelt for a closer look. The Brigadier's report had been right, it did look like frost, scuffled though it was by the policemen who had first come to the site. But it plainly was not. Taking his handkerchief, he experimentally wiped some up and folded it inside the cloth for later analysis. He moved to the door itself, leaning the side of his face against the doorsill, he squinted across the surface of the door, then rocked back on his heels thoughtfully.

Something touched his face.

He startled slightly, automatically putting up a hand. There was nothing there. It had been so soft a touch he wondered if he had imagined it. Like feathers, or a stray lock of hair. And yet there was a sense of something there. Of a presence.

Now alert, he slowly made his way back to the pathway, looking all around. The cypress lining the walk stood in their columnar row, waving gently. But there was no breeze strong enough to move them…

"Who's there?" the Doctor asked in a low voice. "We are peaceful and mean you no harm. Will you show yourself?"

Invisible feathers seemed to wisp around him, a faint silver shine, barely perceptible.

"Can you understand me?"

The cypress ruffled briefly, moving away from him. There was no sound, but he had felt it. It was gone, and he had no idea if it had understood any of his attempt to communicate, but now he knew that it was alive.


	4. Chapter 4

**Part 3**

 _Nor winks the gold fin in the porphyry font_

. . .

The Doctor wasted no time striding back to the old tower that now housed his portable lab, breezing past a soldier who'd been left on watch at the base of it. His long legs carried him rapidly up to the circular room at the top. Jo, who'd just sat down to rest her feet, sprang back up as she heard him approaching.

He paused to orient in the new surroundings. "Jo, it's alive," he stated. "Most definitely a living creature. I felt it near me." He headed over to the table that UNIT had neatly set up. It filled half the small room, which was intended as a kitchenette.

"What? You saw it? What did it…"

"It wasn't quite visible. Not really. I tried communicating with it, but all it did was touch me and fade away. I'm convinced it's at least sentient, though how much it comprehends our world I have no idea."

She followed him over to the table. "Do you think it's dangerous?"

He fished in his pocket, pulling out the samples from the fernbrake and portico. "We don't know if it means to be. But we did see what happened to those plants, didn't we? We'll certainly need to exercise caution."

"Would you like me to ring up Sergeant Benton?"

"Oh, right. Certainly." He leaned on the table and stared at the bits of fern, his brow furrowed in thought.

"Rapunzel to Greyhound," said Jo into the radio set. "Rapunzel to Greyhound."

The Doctor rolled his eyes.

Benton's voice came over the line. "Greyhound here. How are things up in the tower, Rapunzel?"

"News is the rabbit is alive, there's been an encounter with it. He says …"

"Tell the fools not to shoot at it," the Doctor grumbled over by the table. "And it could be dangerous."

"…It's not rabbit season, but take care," Jo said.

"Roger that, Rapunzel. Anything else?"

"I need to see that landing site," the Doctor said suddenly. "Before it gets dark."

"We're going to look for…um, the rabbit's warren. Request some game wardens to come with us."

"Two wardens on the way. Greyhound out."

Jo glanced out the window. "It's nearly sunset. We should bring a torch."

The Doctor was already tucking one into a pocket. "Are you ready?" She grabbed up her coat and followed him down. They'd barely reached the bottom before two UNIT men came jogging up the path. "

"Do either of you know where that meteor's landing site was?" he asked.

"Yessir," said the first one. "That is, I haven't seen it myself but I know about where to find it. It's down near the water, though; a bit of a walk."

"That'll do. Lead the way, man. Let's see what we find."

. . .

The light was beginning to dim by the time they neared the water's edge, making their way along to where a line of yellow police tape flapped around the perimeter of the damp crater.

"Are you sure this is it?" the Doctor asked. "It isn't just a secondary crater from a fragment?"

"Yessir. This is all we've found."

He looked out at the Estuary. "Sonar scan?"

"Yessir. Waterways were clean, no sign of impact or foreign bodies. I can get you the report, if you like."

"No, no, that's not necessary."

He cocked his head to one side, visually measuring it. "Considerably smaller than I would have thought; by a significant magnitude. Yet it had enough impact to be heard some distance away. This can't be more than twelve metres across; it should have been several times that, even if our mystery object was quite small. And what's this, I wonder?" He stepped over the tape and made his way down the slope into the modest crater's bowl where water was gathering into wide brown puddles, a formation of some kind lifting up from the water and mud in the center.

"Keep an eye out, will you?" he called back to them. "The alien I encountered was a bit hard to see. Looked like a faint silver light, but wasn't hostile towards me. Still we don't know if it might take offense at our poking about, nor if it's alone."

The soldiers nodded, going to either end of the crater's perimeter and scanning the surrounding woods and waters. Jo hesitated, then hugged her coat about her and picked her way down after him, her heels sinking into the mud. "What is that?" she asked with a nod to the formation in the middle.

"I'm not sure," the Doctor said carefully edging closer to it. "It doesn't appear to be any recognizable piece of spacecraft or escape pod as I first thought. Remember those fragments that came down with the Nestenes? Oh, wait, you weren't there. Nasty lot, those, but the pods looked relatively innocent." He picked up a clod of dirt and experimentally tossed it at the center. Nothing happened. He edged closer again, ignoring the puddles. "Anyway, this doesn't resemble them. I don't think it's alive. It reminds me rather of a rock formation."

He came up to it after a moment, leaned down to look at it closely, then gingerly touched it. "Yes. There's more than one thing odd about this." He looked up at the overcast sky as if judging a trajectory. "It obviously had some ability to slow itself, but not enough to prevent a rather rough landing. If it had hit without some manner of braking this crater would be significantly wider and deeper. Yet there's no evidence of a ship, per se, nor sign of anything being dragged or trundled out of this depression." He rubbed his chin thoughtfully. "But there is this."

Jo came closer as he reached in his pocket for the torch and flicked it on. The thing in the center reminded her of a child's science fair project, like a papier-mâché volcano done up larger than usual, almost the dimension and height of a fat birdbath complete with water now welled in the center. It was grey-brown-red-purple and sparkled as parts of it reflected the torch's beam in the twilight.

"What is it?" she asked.

"See the crystals?" he ran his fingers over the surface of it. "These are porphryatic crystal formations, the larger crystals mixed into the rock. This sort of thing comes from molten rock cooling two ways, both quickly and slowly." He stood up and frowned at it.

"If we take into account the idea that our visitor's ship was able to melt rock, that still should have only created something flatter, with a smooth surface. Quick cooling at a shallow depth." He played the light over it again. "The porphryatic crystals come from a slow cooling, quite deep. Yet here it is. And what's more, the liquid rock cooled while still in motion." He traced up the rising sides of the sparkling font.

"Like a fountain freezing?" said Jo.

"Or like a splash," the Doctor noted, rubbing a finger across his jaw thoughtfully. "As if the elements were caught in the act of displacement, the pattern of a stone tossed in water except the water didn't fall back. It isn't as rough as I first thought either. Look, the surface is all patterned with curls, as if it were etched." He turned the light to the base, trying to see through the muddy waters, finally pulling back a sleeve and plunging his hand in to scrounge around in the mud for something.

He pulled up a wad of dripping earth and scrutinized it and sniffed at it. "Yes. Metal elements. Traces were separated out, like threads. Fascinating." He rinsed his hand in the water and refastened his cuff, then got up and walked across the crater, climbing back up to check along the water's edge, Jo squishing her way after him.

"And look at this," he said.

"Ew," replied Jo at the sight of the dead fish bobbing in the shallows, belly up.

He picked up a twig to flip it over. "A young mullet. And look," he pointed. "There's another, and part of a third. There were probably more, but they'd be gone by now. Local wildlife would make short work of them. Any fish in this immediate area must have been affected by the crash. But what did it die of, I wonder? Shock? Or something else?" He pulled a bag from his pocket and scooped the fish into it. "I'll have to take a look."

"Ew," Jo repeated. "I'm not carrying that."

The Doctor considered his pocket, then went around the crater's edge and handed it to a reluctant soldier. "Carry that for her, will you old chap?"

. . .

As they walked back up the sloping acreage they had to flick the torch back on again to not be tripping over the occasional shallow steps set in the gravel pathways. Jo was glad when she finally saw the warm glow of the tower windows where they'd left the Doctor's lamp shining. She turned to ask him about what possibilities there might be for supper when she saw something silver swirl in the air behind him.

He felt it too. They both turned, Jo automatically ducking inside the protective arm he scooped her into. They heard the soldier's footsteps hesitating up ahead, then turning.

"Stay where you are," the Doctor called to them, low but firm. They froze.

Jo felt a light touch, as if someone were drawing a feather over her hand. It made her jump and reflexively pull her hands closer to her chest, a wave of dizziness washing over her. She felt the Doctor's breath draw in.

"Can you understand us?" he asked. "Are you in need of repairs? We want to help you."

The shimmer brightened for a moment, like a net of frost, then faded away to invisibility, though the leaves of the bushes nearby still waved lightly as if in a breeze. Jo felt the hairs on the back of her neck standing up. She shivered at the sheer otherworldliness of it.

And then it was gone again.

"You know," the Doctor said, barely audible. "Not only do we know there's at least one alien presence here, I believe it's stranded." He looked down at her. "You're trembling."

"I'm all right," she said, wanting to seem courageous.

"Come, let's get you something hot. Anything is easier to face with a cup of tea."

He resumed walking up the path, Jo coming along with him still in the curve of his arm. He lifted a hand to the soldiers as they caught up to them. "Tell the Sergeant I'll talk to him shortly. And Miss Grant is in need of some good, hot tea. Go on, we'll be fine." He gestured for them to continue on. "All they'd do is shoot at it anyway…" he added in a cynical undertone.

He courteously slowed his stride to match his assistant's, steering her past the tower's walled garden and over the rise toward the tented camp the soldiers had erected by the car park. She could smell warm food cooking, the scent of baking rolls wafting from the field canteen, glad of the solid, mundane normality of it all.

Benton approached them, walking carefully so he wouldn't spill any of the hot drink he was carrying. The Doctor nodded down at Jo and Benton put it in her hands.

"Here you are, Miss."

"Really, I'm all right," she protested vaguely. She was too glad of the tea to protest too much.

"We're both fine," the Doctor said to quell any worries on Benton's part. "Just another brief glimpse, really. One good thing is it means it's staying nearby rather than roaming the countryside. Let's talk over supper, then I really must get to work."

. . .

The Doctor made short work of both his meal and his summaries then excused himself and headed for the tower lab. Jo followed more slowly, glad to find a man stationed at the base of it. They may only be able to shoot at it, as the Doctor had said, but it still made her feel better. She didn't like the idea of being watched by something invisible in the bushes.

"You know," the Doctor said as she reached the top of the steps. "While this creature is possibly hostile, based on the disappearance of the watchman, we don't really know if that was intentional hostility or not." She couldn't tell if he were talking to her or to himself. He had his samples spread out among the equipment on the table, preparing slides. She noted the ill-fated fish was among them, thankfully now sealed in a jar.

The sitting room's small windows were dark. She clicked on the standing lamp that leaned by a stuffed armchair and, as he didn't say anything else, carried her overnight bag down into the smaller bedroom/sitting room. Not that she really thought the Doctor would be using the larger bedroom even lower, he probably wouldn't even be sleeping at all; still it seemed more courteous to not assume the fancier accommodations.

By the time she came out he was peering at slides and jotting notes on a pad of paper. The fish in the jar looked significantly worse for having had the equivalent of a rapid autopsy.

"Did you feel dizzy?" she asked him, plopping down into the lone stuffed armchair again.

"Dizzy?" he lifted his head and raised a brow at her.

"When that…thing was near. When it brushed over me I felt all dizzy."

"Yes. I've noted that same disorientation effect both times. In fact, I surmise that may be what killed the fish we found."

"Killed the fish?"

"The fish we brought in was perfectly healthy, unmarked in any way. There's no trace of poisoning or other trauma. They weren't even killed by the impact. In light of our own experience, I can't help but wonder if they became disoriented and simply beached themselves, so to speak." He turned back to his work.

"Anything I can do to help?"

"Hm. Hand me those slides as I go, will you? That'll speed things up. Thank you, Jo."

She got up and began handing over the fresh slides, neatly setting aside the ones he'd already taken notes on and they worked in companionable silence for a time.

"Interesting," he murmured. "Take a look at this and tell me what you see." He sat back, allowing her to peer into the scope.

"It looks like…frost, like you see on a windowpane in the winter." She looked back at him quizzically.

"Do you want to know what that frost really is? It's common garden spider-webbing. I picked it up from the portico where those two men were." He rubbed his chin thoughtfully. "All webbing, but all of it contorted outward into these frost-like patterns. And I was correct about the fern as well, it does continue its patterning down to a single-celled level. A patterned repetition just like the webbing."

Jo waited. Sometimes all he needed was a sounding board. She leaned back down and took another look, then switched to one of the slides with the fern frond in it.

"I noted that rippled frost pattern in three other places," he continued, crossing his arms and frowning to himself. "One was the ground around the ferns that aren't there anymore, one was the surface of that porphyry formation. The other was in the paint and glass of the door where the men were. It was very faint, but there, even in the harder substance of the glass. The odd thing is it's terribly familiar."

"It reminds me of kaleidoscopes," Jo said.

He looked up at her, his blue eyes gone wide. "That's it! Exactly! Jo, you're right!"

"What? Kaleidoscopes?"

"No, no. Not kaleidoscopes, but something similar in pattern. Have you ever heard of fractals?"

"Fractals? You mean like those psychedelic colored posters?"

"It's mathematical. An algorithm that creates an eternally branching repetitious pattern." He paused and gave her an odd look then grinned at her. "I've no idea what you mean by posters, but… Jo! You did it." He was so pleased to finally have a direction to pursue he even gave her a brief half-hug. "Now shoo. I've got a lot of work to do if I'm going to figure these out."

She smiled, and cheerfully shooed.


	5. Chapter 5

**Part 4**

 _The fire-fly wakens…_

. . .

Jo sighed as she walked once again from the supply truck in the car park, the gravel pathway crunching under her feet. She should have known it was too good to be true that he would have everything he needed up in that lab on the first try. Now that he was going full-bore on his theory about fractals, she'd been down twice to fetch things for him.

The sky was fully dark now, a few stars faintly showing through gaps in the clouds of the Cornish sky, and the gardens were far too peaceful, she thought, for something that harbored an alien presence. The rounded stone building's silhouette loomed over her; she could just see the light in the window above where the Doctor was working, as he had been all evening now.

Jo climbed up the last of the fifty steps she'd been spiraling with her arms full of a mix of odd bits of electrical supplies. Her pockets bulged with sandwiches wrapped up in wax-paper packets that would be serving as a late supper for the Doctor and herself, the guard at the base of the tower having already relieved her of his own share.

"I say, Doctor," she gasped, complaining even before she reached the top. "If you're going to keep sending me off for more bits and bobs, perhaps you'd care to move someplace with fewer steps to climb?"

"Mnm?" he mumbled distractedly at her. He had his jeweler's eyeglass in, closely examining a connection. "We couldn't exactly take over that mansion without good reason, could we? Oh, thank you, Jo," he barely looked at her as he took the proffered handful of bits, coils of light cable and tools she'd brought him. She flumped into the armchair to catch her breath, making it squeak in protest, belatedly fished out the sandwich packets before they could be completely squashed.

The rounded small room had probably never looked like this. Usually rented out by tourists and history buffs who fancied sleeping in the unusual old structure, this time the little kitchen was completely dominated by the table scattered with tools and odd bits, the tall figure of the Doctor turning to stoop back over his work with a small soldering iron in his hand. The air was chilly, and she noticed he had put his silk-lined travel-cape back on, the small lamp magnifying his shadow across the far wall.

"Sandwich?" she offered.

"Eh? Oh, all right," he responded, not turning around.

"Aren't you even going to ask what kind they are?" She tossed one to the table so she wouldn't have to get back up. He didn't comment.

"Could be something frightful. The Sergeant made them."

"Jo, I'm busy," he said. A tiny bit of smoke swirled in the lamplight as he touched the tip of the iron to the wires.

She rolled her eyes and unwrapped her own sandwich. It looked like it was going to be a long, late night again.

. . .

The guard at the tower's base shifted his weight uncomfortably. The nearby shrubbery swayed slightly as if in a strong breeze, though the air was barely stirring. The hackles on his neck prickled and he turned his head watchfully.

Glistening, a presence hesitated nearby then slid nearer to the doorway as a faint silver-gold shimmer, waiting.

The soldier squinted at the shimmer and unshouldered his gun, unsure whether stepping towards or away would be the better course, or if his weapon would even be of any use. Moving carefully, he leaned over and grabbed at his com unit. "Trap One to Greyhound…." he said softly. The shimmer stopped, then slowly wisped back into the bushes, dissolving away into silver feathers that faded away in the darkness. The man swayed on his feet a moment, shaking away a odd dizziness that had come over him.

Benton's voice came to him, crackling. "Greyhound here."

"I saw it, sir. The rabbit. It was right nearby, watching the tower, I think. No sign of it now."

"Roger that, Trap One. Any updates from Rapunzel?"

"No sir, not since they went up."

"Very well. Report if you see it again, we'll see if we can track it. Greyhound out."

The soldier took a worried breath and glanced up at the small tower window above him. The faint glow from the Doctor's lamp was undisturbed.

The Doctor's radio hissed a moment, then Benton's voice came through. "Greyhound to Rapunzel."

Jo's head jerked up from where she realized she'd been nodding in her chair.

The Doctor was tweaking a knob on a construct of wired parts he held in his hands. A light glowed from the front of it then went dark again. "Can you get that, Jo? I'm rather busy…" he said with a frown.

"Greyhound to Rapunzel. Do you read me, Rapunzel?"

Jo went to the set and picked it up. "Rapunzel here, this is Jo. How are things down there, Sergeant?"

"We've had one sighting of our rabbit, but it seems to have disappeared into its hole again. Just checking in. Any updates?"

Jo looked at the Doctor questioningly. He nodded. "Tell him I think I've got something, but it's not ready, I'll have to test it first. It's primitive, but hopefully an effective tool…"

"He says he's got something but it needs testing..."

The Doctor turned it on and shone a bit of light across the wall, turned it off and went back to working on it. "And tell him to leave me alone!"

"…and he very nicely and politely requests some peace and quiet."

They both heard Benton laughing. "Right. Well, let us know if anything comes up, otherwise we'll try to keep it to a minimum. Greyhound out."

Jo set the radio down. The Doctor had already submerged in his work again. She watched him for a moment, then went to down to her bed, rubbing her eyes. Maybe a brief nap was in order.

. . .

She woke up where she'd fallen asleep sprawled across the narrow bed. She was still dressed and realized she even still had her shoes on; she hadn't meant to fall asleep, only to doze. She angled her wristwatch in front of her face, but it was too dark to make out the time; it was still nighttime, anyway. Her bedroom door was partly open. Out in the stairwell she suddenly noticed a strange watery looking light moving in a pattern across the stones. It stopped.

Her heart suddenly beat fast and tight. Had that creature come in while she was sleeping? What about the Doctor? Had he….disappeared? All in a moment she was wide awake and trying to plan how to get up the staircase to the radio to call for help, or barring that how to get down the staircase to fetch help that way, as quickly as possible. She slid to her feet and crept over to the door.

The light flickered and stopped. Holding her breath, she peeped one eye around the jamb, then slowly crept up the steps. Peering cautiously over the edge as she came up to the lab, she let out her breath in relief.

The Doctor was standing, obviously well and whole, partly silhouetted against the light of his lab lamp. He held something about the size of a small toaster in his hands, leaning back against the table as he thoughtfully adjusted a control. The strange light she had seen, watery and swirling, emitted from it, patterning over the walls.

He glanced over at her. "Hullo, Jo. Have a nice rest?"

She came the rest of the way up overly casual to cover her embarrassment at her fear. "So, what's that you've got there?"

"You could call it a fractalizer, I suppose. Or an anti-fractalizer, it's really both." He turned it off again and set it on the table, popping open the top to tweak something with a jeweler's screwdriver. He'd apparently cannibalized a set of binoculars and someone's old brownie camera for the casing. One of the knobs looked like the cap from a tube of toothpaste, giving the whole thing a very cobbled-up appearance.

"This setting increases the resonance of a base fractal algorithmic pattern. I used one quite similar to the pattern it replicated into the fern as a baseline starting point. The other," he tapped the toothpaste-cap knob, "mathematically injects a set of attractors into it, to break up the chained repetition into small, independent orbits."

Jo nodded, though she really had no idea what he was talking about.

"I was just trying it out. I'm thinking if we take it out into the garden in the morning, we could try increasing the depth of the patterning." He closed the casing with a satisfied tap. "Sort of like using a loudspeaker."

"So…we could talk to it?"

"It may make a tool for communicating with it in some manner, if fractals are its language. Or it may merely attract it. If it is a language, we'll probably sound like we're speaking nonsense at first, but we have to start somewhere."

"And this," he turned the other knob on the machine. "Is for my other theory, which is that it can deliberately change whatever it touches to a fractal pattern by some sort of chemical shift or force that acts upon the substance of the target. The attractors will cause any fractal-based non-physical substance to scatter into smaller, non-connected and harmless orbital portions.

"It scatters it, then?"

"Essentially. Seeing as the change does seem intentional: it hasn't fractalized everything it encountered, only select things."

"Or people," Jo said.

"Yes," he gave a grim look. "Which is why this setting should stop it if necessary. I can only hope it will merely stop it and not wound it. It depends how much of its living essence depends on a stable fractal pattern formation and how resilient it is."

"So it's a weapon?" she asked.

He frowned. "As much as I dislike the thought, yes, it could be seen as a weapon. It would be irresponsible to leave us defenseless if it turns hostile."

He flipped it on again, playing the light over the wall, squinting at it. He flipped it back off, consulting some of his own jotted equations and notes. Jo watched, leaning companionably on her elbows beside him as he tweaked it a second time then turned it on again.

. . .

In the small hours of the night, the new watchman sighed and shouldered his gun, peering out at the shadowy garden. All was quiet. He took a brief turn around the garden of the water tower and finding nothing out of place came back to the doorway.

"Must be tired," he mumbled to himself as he swayed briefly. He leaned against the doorsill as a brief wave of dizziness passed, not noticing the thin threaded wisp of silver that slid silently around his boots, disappearing underneath the door into the tower's base.

Inside, the creature could sense the calling coming from above, a pulsing and patterning, familiar and yet foreign. It was there, and then it was not, there and maddeningly gone again.

It swirled up the tower steps, changing as it went, spreading out into an infinitely feathered mist, then growing and shrinking upon itself as it navigated upwards, its internal fires awakening in proximity to its goal.

. . .

The Doctor switched his creation on, then off, then on again, absorbed once more in his work. Jo leaned beside him for a few more minutes, debating whether or not to go back to bed. Just as she headed for her favored armchair as a compromise, something flickered on the edge of her vision.

"Jo!" the Doctor's voice suddenly came, quiet but intense. "Step back slowly, away from the stairway."

She stepped away, sidling back towards the relatively safety of the Doctor's presence. From the doorway at the top of the steps a feathery iridescent silver net drifted into the room.

The silver brightened and seemed to fracture into feathers, gold beginning at the tips and sliding downward to become more gold than silver. Alien and potentially threatening as it was, it was beautiful. Trailing in from the stairwell, it lifted up before them like a broad dancer's scarf.

Jo slowly slid up next to the Doctor, angled so she was half-hiding behind him. The Doctor considered a moment, then picked up the machine and switched it on. The watery pattern played across the wall beside the creature. The now-golden net rippled, waving as it drew towards the light.

"I think we can safely say it works as an attractant…" he murmured to Jo.

A tendril reached out to palpate the beam of light itself, then slowly stretched out, following it back towards its source. The Doctor's brow furrowed as the exploratory thread of gold crossed the room and neared them. Jo involuntarily took a step back.

The thread reached them, drifted over the face of the machine held in his hands, then quickly brushed its feathery touch over his fingertips.

The Doctor braced himself against the mild dizziness, evaluating the approach of this alien even as it was doing the same to him. It was deceptively soft, he thought, feeling the power behind it. He realized it was drawn to him and his presence as if fascinated, paying no attention to Jo. The thread thickened as it explored, moving up his arm, towards his face.

He realized he was picking up impulses, not quite thoughts, but impressions from it through its touch. That it knew the pattern of a human being, it had learned as much from the men it had consumed. But he was different. It wanted what he had, a complexity and depth and knowledge. The knowledge of the stars. It pulsed a longing to be free of this world, to return to the stars it knew. It tried to delve within him for patterns, patterns appropriate for escaping.

And the Doctor knew it wanted him, but not to communicate with, not to work alongside. It wanted to consume what he was and make him a part of it. This much he was sure of. He set his teeth and mentally pushed back.

Abruptly the gentle golden thread turned a violent rose-red. Shadows flickered on the rounded walls as it flared bright gold-red, lifting up, expanding out to wrap the Doctor in its living net.

"Doctor, watch out!" Jo's voice cried out, alarmed.

He could feel it pushing at his mind, skimming through the biological processes that kept his body running, centering in on his very emotions and thoughts. Every pattern that made up who he was, his memories and knowledge, was suddenly threatened. He had no idea how much it could intellectually comprehend but it alarmed him how quickly it focused, how rapidly and strongly it made a bid at reaching for his mind.

And he realized, with surprise and no small alarm, that it could duplicate itself infinitely into the smallest reaches of his being if he allowed it in, change who he was into something else, leave him patterned after its own kind.

Leaning his side into the table to control a growing vertigo, he closed his eyes in concentration, constructing mental barriers wherever it was reaching, slapping it away, repelling it. It wavered slightly and pulled back in confusion, then advanced again.

"Doctor? What's it doing? Doctor!"

He heard the note of hysteria in Jo's voice but could do nothing to comfort her. He dare not break his concentration to form an answer.

Indeed, he was so focused on dealing with this inner, invasive touch he was only partly aware of another touch, this one human. Jo's slim, trembling hand, coming down over his hands, turning the setting on the machine.

The fractal pattern changed; the red-gold net that had been closing in around his mind suddenly shattered into fragments, retreating into shreds of surprise and confusion. He opened his eyes.

Repelled by the kaleidoscopic-seeming light now shining across it, the creature fell away in strings of snowflakes wherever the light touched, dissolving back away from the Doctor and Jo.

Yet now it knew there was order, knowledge and possible escape behind that chaotic light. It thirsted for that order, for the stars. It wanted to reach the Time Lord, to somehow get beyond this now hated machine that blocked its every expansion.

"No…" the Doctor gasped as it strung out in thin branches, trying to find a way around the light. Coming around and from behind, it thinly encapsulated him again in a blood-red glow, pulling at his mind, the silver fronds seeking to be drawn into his being, to absorb him. It was too much, too fast. It was winning.

In a bid for time, he desperately threw up a solid, nonselective mental wall, outwardly dropping to his knees, putting his hands to his own temples. The machine fell with a clatter, its light ineffectively playing against the floor.

"Doctor!" Jo staggered as she stooped and snatched it up, pointing it at the alien presence again. "Leave him alone!" she cried.

The swirling mass, already confused at the Doctor's sudden disappearance of thought immediately turned to the fearful protectiveness radiating from Jo, then reeled back once more from the stabbing light of the machine she wielded. She clutched it and took a step forward, trying to force it away from the Doctor's kneeling form even as she reeled from the disorientation of its presence.

"Jo…no!" The Doctor cried as his eyes opened again. It was sliding a long thin strand of itself around her, avoiding the light of the machine, coming from the back.

Distracting it from his assistant, he dropped his mental shields and instead aimed all of his mind, thoughts and will directly at it in one mental punch.

"Jo! Behind you!" he shouted at the same time, lunging up at both it and her so that she gave a gasp and nearly fell. He caught her, spinning her around at the same time so the beam she held shot over the tendril that had been surrounding her, then continued them around so they panned over the entire creature, Jo protectively held within the arc of his arm and cloak. The smaller tendrils dissolved away like melting gold-red snowflakes.

Confused, not knowing which way to turn, the alien presence began to lose cohesion. It splayed out in all directions as it was hit with the swinging light of the machine, weakened and still stunned by the Doctor going from no thought at all to more than it could bear.

Confused, overwhelmed and now desperate to escape that terrible light it abandoned them. Abruptly coalescing into a small comet of silver-gold-red it struck instead with all of its might at the machine that was tormenting it so.

There was a sudden flare, like a Roman candle shot at their hands. The machine exploded with a arcing of colored sparks.

Both the Doctor and Jo had been holding it, his hands covering her smaller ones to help direct it, and the electrical and particle charges that shot up from the machine went into the two them like a bolt. They collapsed as one in a sudden silence and lay still, his arm yet draped over her shoulders where they fell, the ruined machine clattering away.


	6. Chapter 6

**Part 5**

… _waken thou with me._

. . .

Jo wasn't sure where she was, but it wasn't on a bed. There was hard wooden flooring beneath her and she felt like every muscle was stiff and sore, even ones she'd forgotten she had. The room was chill, though there was something soft behind her, keeping her warm. Disoriented, she fumbled for the edge of what she took for a blanket and pulled it to wrap up in, snuggling down into the warm pillow.

The pillow spoke. "Jo? Are you all right?" it asked softly.

"Doctor?" Jo startled as where she was and why suddenly came back to her. She clutched the warm cloak's edge now out of fearfulness, her eyes flicking over the dim, rounded room they were in. Sunlight was in the windows.

His hand gave her arm a gentle, reassuring squeeze. She could feel his breath in her hair. "We're the only ones here. It's gone. Where to I have no idea, but probably not far." He released her arm and propped himself up on his elbow, looking to the small window to assess the hour. It was daylight. "Seems we were out for a bit."

She still held onto his cloak, not wanting to move. She wondered how long he'd already been awake, laying beside her to keep her warm. It seemed like something he would do. "Do you think we…wounded it?"

"Wounded? Perhaps. More likely just overwhelmed, like an emotional shock. An overload."

"From that fractal-thing machine?"

"Partly," he didn't give further details, but rubbed his hand through his hair thoughtfully, making it fluff out. He nudged the ruined machine with the toe of his shoe. "Looks like I've some repairs to do, and we better check in with Sergeant Benton, they're bound to be wondering where we are by now. I'm surprised they haven't bashed down the door."

Jo was glad they hadn't. The idea of the any of the soldiers finding her asleep in the Doctor's arms… well, even if they had both been unconscious, it still might have opened a can of worms in the rumor mill. She didn't say anything though ; she wasn't even sure if he would understand. Still, it was comforting, waking up with him there when she was still feeling shaky…

Jo reluctantly let go of his cloak, scrubbed at her face with her hands and stiffly tried to sit up then lay back down again, wrapping her arms around herself. It was cold, away from him. "How long has it been?"

He smiled slightly and quietly shifted so he could lay the edge of the cloak back over her shoulders. "I'm not sure, but it's certainly daylight out there. Late morning, I expect. Maybe near noon."

"Noon?" Her eyes went wider. "We've been out for hours and hours then!"

"Yes. It's a good thing this tower isn't open to the public or we might have had a tour guide tumble over us."

"They closed it to the tours," she reminded him absently. "Now be a proper gentleman and help me get up. I'm stiff."

He obligingly got to his knees. "How's the disorientation?"

"I was a little spinny when I was waking up, but I'm all right now. My hands are a little sore. You?"

He climbed to his feet and reached down a hand to help her up, both of them dusting themselves off. "Well enough. The stiffness is probably just an after-effect of the shock. You should be fine once you move about a bit."

"You're so sympathetic."

"If it's any consolation, I could use a bit of a stretch myself. Here's your coat. Come on now."

He laid her coat over her shoulders as she reluctantly looked at the stairs that curled around the inside of the tower. Fifty steps didn't really seem so bad before, but now her muscles ached just thinking about lowering herself all that way.

She looked at him, feeling rather pathetic. "Can we at least get some tea after we check in?"

His gaze was understanding. "Certainly, my dear." he took her arm. "Here we go. One step at a time, shall we?"

. . .

Benton smiled up at them as they came in through the door of the tent. "Ah, there you are! Slept in a bit, did you? We were just thinking we ought to send someone in to wake you up."

"I think I had rather more sleep than I wanted," the Doctor said dryly. "You should have checked on us."

"We were both knocked out, stiff on the floor!" Jo added. "And you left us laying there. Didn't you think anything was wrong?"

"What?" Benton's smile vanished, replaced by growing alarm and consternation. He got to this feet and came around to them. "I'm so sorry, Miss Grant. No, it was late enough we just thought you'd decided to call it a night. And you did ask we not bother you. We had no idea you needed help."

"That monster was in there," Jo added with a shiver. "It nearly got the Doctor."

"What…?"

"Now Jo," the Doctor interrupted, downplaying. He didn't want to alarm Benton any more than necessary. "I'm sure I wasn't in any real danger. And we don't know if it meant to be hostile…"

"Monster?" Benton asked. "You mean the wispy thing? Or something else?"

"The wispy thing," Jo clarified. "But that was bad enough. It blew up the Doctor's machine. We were holding it and it blew up in our hands."

Benton's concern only grew at this. He reflexively took one of her hands, turning the palm to him as if expecting burns. "Do you need a medic? Were you hurt?"

"Well, no…we're just a bit stiff. From the shock." Jo said. Benton awkwardly let her hand go and turned to the chairs that were set up around a table.

"Please, have a seat, Miss. You too, Doctor. So that machine you said you were working on …blew up?"

The Doctor gave a wry smile to Jo at that. "Yes, well, it didn't care too much for it, did it? At least I know I'm on the right track. I just need to make some adjustments. I think it needs to be a bit wider in scope, for one thing. Perhaps some portable units for the men as well."

"I'm sure the men would appreciate it. They've been a bit unnerved by the way it sort of floats about."

"Always preferring something they can shoot at," the Doctor commented dryly. "Still, it's shown itself to be fairly powerful and intelligent as well. To the best of our knowledge, it's been stranded here accidentally."

"Can you help it?"

"Perhaps, yes. But it's desperate. Possibly frightened, certainly on its guard and striking out at anything it thinks is a threat."

"So we need to not be threatening?" Benton's brow furrowed slightly.

"I don't know," the Doctor mused, accepting the sugar from Jo and stirring some into his tea. "It challenged me quite strongly last night. We need some way to defend ourselves, at least until it learns some manners."

"It needs to ask for help nicely," Jo put in, passing a plate of dubious-looking leftover danishes.

The Doctor smiled at her. "A little respect for your fellow sentient life-forms goes a long way. At least that's been my experience."

"But we don't want to be bullied either," noted Jo. "I admit I wanted a decent night's sleep, but not like that."

"My experience," Benton nodded, "Is that bullies don't always understand manners. Sometimes a black eye goes a long way too."

The Doctor picked at a sticky raspberry danish. "As much as I hate to encourage your proclivity to force, you are partly right. Though it's still merely communicating using their own language, Sergeant. The idea is to have some discernment as to when contests of strength are truly necessary."

Benton nodded, pushing aside his own plate." So… are they?"

He sighed. "It functions mathematically and through patterning, it can sense emotions and some level of thought. Its force was more by emotive and psychic properties than physical ones. Physical strength means nothing to it. It merely reacts to the energy produced by aggression and stamps out the source, as a man might stamp out an anthill. This being the case, I would prefer to find a way to speak with it but it appears our first need must be for self-defense."

The Doctor set down his cup and stood. "The base of the tower should still be kept under surveillance. I expect it won't take kindly to my repairing that machine, if it understands that's my purpose. But make sure your men know they are only observers until we can equip them with these devices. They need to stay back from it, shooting it won't make any difference."

"Right. I'll tell the men. You're back to your tower, then?"

"I need to get back to work. Too many hours have been lost as it is. Here," he dug in a pocket and handed Benton a folded paper. "This is a list of the supplies I'll need to make up more of those fractalizing devices."

Benton glanced it over. "We'll get them."

"Good. Jo? Would you rather stay down here?"

She looked up at him, realizing he was offering her an out if she was frightened. "I'm coming with you," she replied firmly. "I am your assistant, after all. Just let me pack us some sandwiches or something; there's nothing up there but a packet of biscuits."

"All right," he said. He was truly glad for her company.

. . .

The rest of the day passed quickly enough, in spite of everyone being on edge about the alien's presence. Though Benton had downplayed it, word had gone round the men about the creature attacking the Doctor and Miss Grant, with varying drama about the details according to the storyteller. While generally confident about the Time Lord's ability to land on his feet, they weren't so sure about Jo, or about themselves. None of them fancied getting 'sucked up' by some unknown creature, even if it was an expected risk for their job.

As the afternoon wore on to evening, even the Doctor began to wonder where the thing had got to. He really didn't think he'd done it much damage in light of the strength and adaptability it had shown.

"Maybe we knocked it out too," Jo guessed. "It would only be fair."

"Maybe," he said noncommitally. "Hand me that coil of wire, would you? This one's almost gone."

"Greyhound to Rapunzel," said the radio.

"Already?" groaned Jo. Benton wasn't leaving anything to chance after their previous encounter and had them checking in on hour. While Jo appreciated the caution, she was getting weary of answering it.

"Tell him…" the Doctor began.

"…that there's nothing to report," Jo finished along with him and rolled her eyes.

"This is Rapunzel," she said. "Nothing to report."

"Nice to hear it, Miss Grant. I've something though," said Benton.

"He's seen it?" the Doctor asked. "You've seen it?" she asked at the same time.

He sounded amused. "No, no alien creatures unless you count this one…," there was a pause and a shuffling noise. Another voice came over the speaker.

"Confound it, Doctor, can't I leave you alone for a moment? I hear you've already blasted Miss Grant off her feet."

The Doctor took the com from Jo's hands. "Brigadier! So good to have you joining us."

"About time too," the Brigadier's voice groused. "Demmed meetings running on… Never go into politics, man. I swear, it's enough to make me wish I'd taken my mum's advice and become a greengrocer. Just wanted to let you know I'm here."

"A greengrocer?" Jo giggled behind her hands.

"Good, you can keep us out of trouble," the Doctor replied.

There was an audible snort from Benton in the background. The Brigadier's voice continued. "I'm coming up to your tower."

"I'll have Jo throw down her hair for you. Rapunzel out."

Jo set about clearing a space to sit. "What if it shows up while he's here?"

The Doctor considered the half-done device on his table. "Then we better hope at least one of these works. Hand me that wire-stripper, will you? The smaller one. And find me another clip."

After a few minutes they heard the Brigadier's voice, addressing the man on watch, then his boots clumping up the steps.

"So!" he said as he entered the room. "This is where you've been stashed away." His eyes ran over the rounded room and its clutter of equipment. "Looks like you've made yourself at home. Good day, Miss Grant."

"Good day, Brigadier," Jo answered cheerily. "Or perhaps I should say evening? Would you like some tea? We've a little kettle up here now."

"No, no thank you. Just wanted to see how you'd been billeted. Are those the devices that Benton mentioned, then?" He gestured with his swagger-stick at the small stack of rectangles at the end of the table.

"Yes," the Doctor said. "Here, let me demonstrate." He picked one up and toggled it on. A light shone from the end of the rectangle, playing over the flooring.

"Doctor…" Jo said with some concern. "Didn't that bring it to us last time?"

"No, no. That was the other setting I had, on the larger machine. These only have the anti-fractalizing beam in their capability. You see, Brigadier, if that lamp were the creature in question, for instance, you merely point it thus, panning over the entire thing as necessary. They do have a limited battery life, I'm afraid, so the men will need to understand they're to only turn them on in need, not to play with them."

"That's it?" the Brigadier asked, his eyebrows climbing.

"Yes, were you expecting something with explosions and fairy lights, perhaps?"

"Well…no, but you must admit if a man has an alien being threatening his life, flicking on a square torch hardly…"

"This is much more than a 'square torch' Brigadier," the Doctor interrupted with some annoyance. "The mathematical fractalization has had set attactors interjected into the patterning that…"

"Yes, well, as long as you know what you're doing, Doctor," the Brigadier interrupted back, waving his hand.

"It scatters it," Jo put in by way of simplification.

"I'll take your word for it. Are those ready to go, then?"

The Doctor flicked off the one in his hand and gave the distinct impression of biting his tongue. He took a breath, then put the stack into the Brigadiers hands. "Yes. There. Divvy those out among the men, your technician should be able to give you more by tomorrow evening. If he's competent." His tone indicated he found this dubious. "Remember the battery life. Now if you don't mind, I've still a lot of work to do here."

"Of course. Good day, er, evening Miss Grant, Doctor." The Brigadier looked vaguely amused underneath his moustache. He gave a nod, turned and headed down the steps, the lights neatly tucked under his arm.

"It's nice to have him back, isn't it?" Jo asked.

The Doctor didn't reply at first. She touched his arm, making him glance over at her.

"He wanted a gun, that's what he wanted," he said with a flash of anger. "Military fool."

Jo tilted her head and gave him a little smile. "But you still like it that he's back."

"I…oh, all right. Yes, at least I know he'll be efficient if needed. There, does that satisfy you?"

"Well enough. Now, where were we?"

He smiled, his hands already busy with the wires on the table. "Bring me some more of those clips, will you?"

. . .

Some time later, the hour was growing late enough that Jo couldn't stop yawning. Giving in to her fatigue, she finally left the Doctor calculating something she couldn't understand and went down to the bedroom where she changed into warm pyjamas. Laying on the narrow bed, she tried closing her eyes, then opened them. She stared at the wall for a while, fluffed her pillow, turned and startled at every imagined bit of shadow or light.

Irritated, she closed her eyes tightly and willed herself to sleep, but in spite of being tired it still eluded her. She was worried that alien was going to show up in her room, she had to admit it, at least to herself. She sighed. She didn't like admitting she was jumpy, it was already hard enough to not be treated like a child half the time.

After tossing and turning for another half hour she decided she really, really was being a bit jumpy. Anyone could be jumpy, right? She wasn't exactly afraid. Well, maybe. Still annoyed with herself, she flounced out of bed and finally came back up into the converted dining area where the Doctor watched, bemused, as she dragged the stuffed armchair, it's legs squeaking, all the way across the room.

Going back down, she stripped the fat white comforter from the bed, dragged it back up the steps with her, then curled up in the chair. There, with the Doctor between her and the dreaded stairwell, his steady presence nice and close at hand she finally felt safe enough to relax. He watched without comment as she melted downward in the chair, then continued his work, accompanied by her soft breathing into the night.


	7. Chapter 7

**Part 6**

 _Now droops the milkwhite peacock like a ghost…_

. . .

"Rapunzel, this is Greyhound." Benton's voice came over the radio speaker. Though he had let up a bit over the night, he was still being cautious. Only the barest shades of dawn were lightening the Cornish sky.

"Eh?" Jo said, suddenly startling out of her sleep, half-tumbling from the chair in a tangle of blanket.

The Doctor, who'd been half-dozing at the table over his projects, snatched up the radio com. "Benton, blast you, you've gone and woken her up! Can't you hold your tongue until a more decent hour?"

"Good morning, Doctor," the Sergeant's slightly apologetic voice replied. "Sorry, but the Brig said we were to be sure you were safe. It's the top of the hour. Breakfast is underway down here, care to join us?"

"No! Go away. We'll be down when we're good and ready." He switched it off, gave it a glare, then turned to Jo with a suddenly gentled demeanor. "I'm so sorry, my dear. Sometimes they've positively no manners. Go back to sleep."

Jo had already pulled herself back into a ball of blanket on the chair and scrunched her eyes shut. "We could get breakfast," she mumbled.

"Later," he adjusted her blanket, tucking it around her shoulders for her. She'd only slept fitfully during the night. He hovered his hand over her for a moment as if in indecision, then gently smoothed her hair. "Now get your rest," he murmured. She was silent, drifting deep into a fearless sleep under his touch.

. . .

Not wanting to leave her alone, the Doctor stayed up in the tower until luncheon, answering the radio check-ins on the hour to keep away any worried visitors. He used the time to finish repairing and improving his original design and to go over the samples of fern and spider-webbing one more time, adjusting his equations as he did so.

When Jo finally woke from her sleep, well-rested and clear-eyed she was amused to see the radio speaker had a pillow firmly fastened over it. "Good morning, Doctor," she said, stretching under her blanket and giving a yawn. "I must have slept in. What time is it?"

He smiled at her from where he was peering through the microscope. "Nearly one, I believe."

"In the afternoon?" She asked with disbelief. "Why, I've slept the entire day away! You should have woken me up."

"How do you feel?"

"Famished."

"Good. The Brigadier is waiting for us to join him for lunch."

"Oh! Well, I can't go dressed in pyjamas. Give me a two minutes and I'll be ready!" She bounced up from the chair went to her bedroom, dragging the blanket back with her like a cape.

. . .

"Good morning, I mean, afternoon Brigadier," Jo greeted their commander as they came into the tent.

"Good afternoon, Miss Grant. Doctor. Sleep well?"

Jo blushed slightly. "Yes…"

"No," the Doctor said to head off her discomfiture. "But I did get that fractalization device functioning again with some improvements."

"Ah," the Brigadier nodded. "Well. Have a seat." He signaled to a man near the opposite entrance who ducked out, returning shortly with a tray of food for three. The Brigadier turned to the hotplate at the end of the table that was serving as a desk. "Tea?"

"Yes, please," Jo said.

The Doctor took one of the folding chairs and stretched his long legs out in front of him. "Any sign of our visitor, Brigadier?"

"No. No reports from anywhere else either, so it doesn't seem to have wandered off. Are you sure you didn't kill it with that machine of yours?" The Brigadier passed a cup of tea to Jo.

"While it is a slight possibility, I very highly doubt it," the Doctor said. "I expect it is either licking its wounds or trying to figure out a way to get at me. Have you distributed those devices to the men?"

"Yes, but we'll be needing more, assuming they work."

"Of course they work," the Doctor said, mildly offended. He leaned over and helped himself to some of the tea. "Would it help if I explained it to you? If you have a basic grasp of fractal mathematics and chaos theory…"

"No thank you, I'll leave that part to you," the Brigadier interrupted. "You can explain it to Miss Grant if you must get it off your chest. What I'd like to know is if those chaps it ate…"

"Fractalized."

"Whatever. Do we know what's become of them? I mean, they aren't merely invisible or in some alternate dimension or something?"

"I wondered that too," Jo said, nibbling at a cup of salad. "I mean, are they sort of floating about somehow?"

The Doctor popped a quarter of a sandwich in his mouth. "Well, we know it may be possible for a living entity that has been fractalized to exist in some form. The creature itself is testimony of it. We know it can learn the pattern of an earthly, physical living thing and adapt to it, as it did with the ferns. The fern was fractalized, so to speak, but it was still living."

"So those men could exist?"

"In light of the way this creature has behaved thus far, I really haven't much hope for them. Not because they could not be converted and live, but because they were the first and apparently taken at the same time. The first set of ferns were completely consumed, an it appears they may have been used as a template to learn from. The second set fared better, only being changed."

"They're gone then," Jo said.

"I regret to say I do think so. They were a pattern for it to learn from. By the time it encountered you and I, it already knew something of human physiology and mental functioning. It was unpracticed, but not untutored."

"So what happens if someone else runs afoul of it? Would they survive?"

"One problem at a time, Brigadier. First we need to do what we can to ensure it doesn't convert anyone else. And to do that I need your technicians to get to work constructing these." He rummaged in his pocket and pulled out some pieces of paper. "The supply list is here, multiply it out by however many men you need covered. And here," he bent to finish scribbling on one of them, "are the diagrams they'll need."

"Sergeant Benton should have some of these supplies already," Jo put in. "We sent him off for some yesterday."

"We'll get right on it."

"This," the Doctor added, jotting and sketching on another piece of paper. "Will create one that we can use as a potential boundary. This estate is far too large to fence in with these of course, but if we can define a target area we should be able to keep the creature corralled within them, provided they are set no more than twenty feet apart. At least that's the theory. I don't think it would stop it if it were determined, but it would certainly dissuade it from casual passage."

"Right. Twenty feet," the Brigadier echoed, neatly folding the papers in half.

"Problem is, I'm not sure what it might do to anyone who has been converted, if someone has that ill fortune and if they do still exist in any form," he mused. "I don't want to disrupt them, of course. We just want to keep the territory of this creature from spreading. Once that's accomplished, then we can work on untying other knots." He picked up the other half of his sandwich. "These are rather good. Are there more?"

"I'll get some," Jo said. "We'll save them for tea."

"One more question," the Brigadier said as they all stood up. "When we set up these boundaries, should we cordon it off from its landing site? Your report says there was no sign of any ship, but could it just be, well, invisible?"

The Doctor looked at him with something like horror. "Why would you want to keep it from the only familiar thing it has?"

"I'm not trying to be cruel, Doctor. But what if this site gives it the strength to attack us? You mentioned that it has specifically targeted you, what if it has additional resources to renew that attack? Should we isolate it from its potential arsenal?"

"Arsenal? What are you talking about Brigadier? The creature has no arsenal, Good God, it hasn't even got a ship! It's isolated from its kind, most likely doomed to die in exile on this alien planet. What it does it does to try to survive. To keep it from the only point of contact it has with its home environment would be inhumane."

The Brigadier was unswayed. "But if it makes it more likely to be an aggressor?"

The Doctor met his eyes for a long moment. "I ask you to leave it a way to its landing site, at least until it proves itself to be the aggressor you fear. If it does, do as you like."

"Very well. We'll continue with hourly check-ins, let me know if anything comes up. Good day."

. . .

As the shadows slid into the late afternoon, the man on watch at the tower door turned on his heel and walked back and forth across the walkway yet again, stifling a yawn. He looked at his watch. One more hour and it would be his turn to go walking about on recon. So far there'd been no sign of anything out of the ordinary, but he'd heard enough from the others to be wary everytime the breeze picked up enough to move the foliage around.

Somewhere above him, he knew that scientist, the Doctor, was working on an answer to all this. He himself was relatively new to UNIT, but he'd seen the respect the others had for this strange, flamboyant man and his pretty assistant. He had been flattered to draw a chance to guard them, even if it was only in broad daylight when everyone knew the creature attacked at night.

He stifled one more yawn and tried to look alert, in case anyone was watching.

Someone was. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw a shimmer.

Instantly tensed up and on the alert, he squinted at the shimmer and unshouldered his gun, out of pure habit. They'd been told to not be confrontational, so he purposely stepped away from it as he did so. He backed to his com unit and carefully picked it up. "Trap 1 to Greyhound..." he said in a low voice. As he spoke, the shimmer stopped, then slowly wisped back into the bushes.

Benton's voice came to him, crackling. "Greyhound here."

"I saw it, sir. It's in the bushes," his excitement showed in his voice. "It was trying to enter the tower, I think. Pulled back when it realized I was here."

"Keep calm," Benton said. "Don't try to stop it."

"But, sir…. What if it goes after that Doc fellow and Miss Grant again?"

"The Doctor is working on something to help, he just wants it observed," Benton said firmly. "He'll watch out for them."

"But…"

"Soldier!"

It was a rebuke, and the man knew it. "Yessir!"

"It will react to aggression. Stay back. Calm yourself."

"Yes sir. What about this torch thing I have? Doesn't that keep it away?"

"According to the Doctor, yes, but he said it might just wound or anger it too. Just observe. Let us know if you see it again. Greyhound out."

The man stood, still gripping his radio com. In spite of his words of obedience, he wasn't convinced. He'd heard from the other men that the creature had already nearly done in the Doctor the previous night, and that Miss Grant had been knocked clean out. He wasn't going to let it happen again, no he wasn't. Not on his watch. He reluctantly shouldered his gun and fingered the rectangular device at his belt, staying wary.

The bushes waved gently as if in a breeze, but the air was still. A shimmering curtain coalesced, rapidly lifting up before him and he wobbled on his feet as a hard wave of vertigo washed over his senses.

Forgetting about the light he'd been given, he automatically brought the gun back up and let off a shot, though shooting at something with so little substance seemed impossible and he knew it would be a direct disregard of orders. Adrenaline pounded. He lost his balance and staggered into the doorframe, blinded by silver light.

"Greyhound….!" he gasped into the com before it fell from his hands. Reeling back he gave a cry as it brightened to gold and red, surrounding him. The radio and gun both clattered down to the paving stones as the soldier dissolved away into silver feathers, golden iced wisps fading to invisibility. The light dimmed and gathered back like a wave on the shore, an exploring tendril briefly waving over the fallen gun, the dangling radio com swinging on its cord.

"Trap 1!" came Benton's voice over the abandoned radio. "Trap 1! Do you read?" There was nothing but crackling, interference, then silence.

Benton slammed down the radio and turned to the men behind him. "To the tower, quickly! Split up and circle 'round. Something's gone wrong. Be careful, stay back from it! Keep your hands on those lights!" He snatched the radio back up. "Rapunzel! Rapunzel! Doctor, we think it's coming your way!"


	8. Chapter 8

**Part 7**

… _And like a ghost she glimmers on to me._

. . .

Thanks to Benton's quick reflexes with the radio, the occupants of the tower were not caught completely by surprise. As the alien swirled into the upper room it found the Doctor waiting with his newly repaired patterning machine, Jo half-hiding behind him with one of the smaller fractal scattering-lights. It hovered at stair top, hesitating.

"See, Jo?" the Doctor said softly. "It has the ability to recognize this and knows to be wary of it now. The more it learns about this world, the better it demonstrates selectivity and intelligent choice."

It rippled slightly, but didn't advance. "What I want to know is if it's reached the ability to communicate with us yet…"

"Last time …" Jo's concern was evident.

His voice was low. "Nevertheless, I have to at least try. I can't have it left in isolation if there's any chance at establishing communication. I've made some changes…We'll never know how to deal with it, or if there's any chance at a peaceful resolution for all this otherwise." He glanced back at her. "Brace yourself."

"But…" Jo began, then subsided unhappily. Holding her small scattering-light ready she obediently braced herself against the rounded wall in readiness for the dizziness that might be coming. "All right."

"Switching…now," he said. The beam lit up, a watery fractal pattern of light spilling across the wall nearest the creature.

The alien glimmered softly, brightening and expanding outward like a net of finest feathers. Swelling out towards the light, it brushed it questioningly, small, glittering fronds curling around it in a dinnerplate-sized whirlpool of silver and gold.

Feeling its way gently around the beam of swirling light it seemed relatively harmless and even lovely. Maybe it would work. Jo slowly let out a breath she hadn't realized she'd been holding in.

It changed. Instantly. Flaring up so brightly they were temporarily blinded, it shot straight along the beam, exploded out into coral-branches of golden-red and shot up the Doctor's left arm, widening out like a manta-ray of light to enclose him in its wings.

His hands spasmed as if from an electric shock. The machine fell to the floor, its light sweeping across the ceiling as it rolled, still strengthening, amplifying, calling to it.

"Doctor!" Jo cried, jumping forward with her scatter-light. He gave a small, strangled sort of sound of surprise, staggering back against the table, his arms defensively up in front of his face. The net dissolved wherever her light touched it, but came back together too quickly, much too quickly. With horror Jo realized the Doctor's left hand was turning silver-white, changing, fractalizing. She whipped at it with the light, crying out for help, reeling as her sense of balance was lost in vertigo, waves of nausea washing over her. Below, she could hear shouts and then the rumble of feet as the UNIT men came charging up the steps.

"Help! It has the Doctor! Help! Benton! Lights!" she screamed. She stamped on the fractalizing machine where it lay, trying desperately to turn it off, kicking and stomping on it with all the muster adrenaline could bring. There was a snap under her feet, then a second snap and something crunching; the horrible luring glow finally winked out. The Doctor went sideways, heavily down onto his knees, his white hair turned silver, gold, red with the lights surrounding him.

Sergeant Benton came into the room as if shot from a catapult, a tumble of UNIT men right on his heels, all of them with the small lights waving as they came.

Jo tried to keep her light focused where the fractalizing effect was creeping up the Doctor's arm, though the longer it went the more disoriented she was getting. She sincerely hoped she wouldn't lose her lunch, the world kept tilting so. The could hear the Doctor's labored breathing, the brief commands from Benton to direct the men, a humming that reverberated in her ears.

Then the room was full of men, all of them directing their small beams at different levels of the creature, forcing it apart like tiny leaves in a windstorm. It swirled, tried to coalesce, swirled again and then abruptly abandoned its attempt. Hemmed in by Jo to one side and UNIT to the other, it went to the flooring and faded so quickly it appeared to have soaked into the floorboards themselves.

Jo didn't know where it had gone and she didn't care. She lurched forward to try to help the Doctor, who had fallen to his side with a moan the moment it had let him go.

"Doctor!" She crawled over to him and cradled his head in her hands, Benton now anxiously bending over them both.

"Are you all right, Miss?"

"I'll be okay. But the Doctor…look at his arm! What's it done to him?"

Benton's face was grave. "I don't know. Doctor what can we do?"

The Doctor lay on the floor, his left arm looking silvery-white and very strange, as if it were made of thickly swirled spider-webbing and frost. It glittered, and Jo suddenly realized she could see the lines of the floorboards right through his hand. It made her feel sick. His breathing was still labored, his eyes tightly shut, and his right hand gripped his other arm tightly just above the elbow, as if to keep it from spreading.

Benton noticed it too. He whipped off his belt and wrapped it around the Doctor's arm just above his hand to make a tourniquet, rapidly tightening it. The Doctor's eyes opened partway. "Thank you, but… not necessary…won't make a difference…" he gasped. He turned his flickering gaze to his own arm, seemingly fascinated with it. He took a couple deep breaths. "Good God… that was unpleasant," he said, his voice slightly stronger. "I… don't recommend it." Benton released the belt and paused to signal, directing the men to spread out around the room.

The Doctor turned slightly to look up at his assistant. "Jo, are you…all right?" His eyes kept unfocusing.

"I'm fine, it seemed to only want you. But your poor hand…"

"Should we call a medic?" Benton asked.

"No," the Doctor said with effort. "They'd be no help…and probably a hindrance." He suddenly rolled to his other side and curled up, holding his arm to his chest. "Jo."

"What can I do?" she asked helplessly.

"On the table… the one I showed you with the blue lighting. Bring it to me."

"But you said it wasn't finished," she protested as she hunted around the surface and grabbed up something square with a glass tube and wad of wiring attached to it. She brought it down to where he lay.

"It'll have to do. Turn it on please, I don't think I can…" She fumbled at the back of it until the small wand-like tube lit up with an oscillating blue-green light.

"Good girl. Now run that patterning over this arm of mine…" His eyes were tightly shut again. She hesitantly placed the glowing tube down by the strangeness of his clenched silver-white fingers, scanning it slowly all the way up to his shoulder then back down. By the time she got back to his fingertips again she thought they weren't looking so see-through anymore. He didn't speak, so she did it again. Yes, they were getting better, not glittery at all.

"Thank you, Jo," he said. His voice still sounded hollow and strained as she came back down his arm for the third time. "I think I can hold it now…" She released it into his other hand. He turned and scanned it up and down by himself, more slowly. The natural coloring began to return to his hand. "Human patterning," he said by way of explanation. "Or near. Not quite right, but close. I was hoping it might help if someone else were affected…didn't expect to need it myself."

The little room was getting quite crowded with men. Benton sent half of them back down the stairs and looked down at him. "Anything we should do?"

"Stay on guard," the Doctor said briefly. He was now applying the light to trouble spots, as it waiting for it to soak in. He toggled it off and lay back on the floor, exhausted.

"Extraordinary," he was saying faintly. "Hot and cold as it comes on, the nerves being converted. Oddest feeling, as if my arm had been surrounded by small white fish all nipping about it..." He paused, opening his eyes to consider his arm as if to ascertain there were no fish. He glanced round at them with his unfocused eyes, then laid his head down wearily. "As if my very substance could all come apart in puzzle-pieces. If I hadn't been fighting it maybe it would have, scattered to the wind like thistle-down. Not the way I would like it..." he faded back off.

"Doctor?" Jo asked anxiously.

His eyes flickered open again briefly. "I'll be all right, Jo. Don't worry. But it's taken a bit of doing to beat it off. Forgive me, my dear, I'm afraid I'm going to need to sleep."

"Sleep?"

His voice was becoming so faint she could barely make it out. "In my own way. Just for a little while. I need to heal; went clear to the bone… wrong pattern for proper replacement… I'll probably become quite cold, don't go off alone...Jo..."

He was silent and pale. She reached out and took the glass tube contraption from his limp hand, passing it up to Benton, and watched as he became even paler. His hand in hers turned cool, then cold, then icy to the touch in the space of a few moments. She realized she was chaffing it and stopped, but still knelt beside him protectively.

The Brigadier's head abruptly popped up from the stairwell, taking in the scene in a moment as the rest of him followed. "Is he alive?" he asked briefly. "You men, check those lower rooms. Yes, I understand it was chased off but I want this place secured."

Benton put the glass tube and its box on the table and gave the Brigadier a brief salute. "That alien thing went after him, sir. Nasty. Made his arm all go all odd-like. He did something to fix it up then put himself into cold storage for a bit."

Lethbridge-Stewart folded his arms behind him stiffly. "Near as we can tell it's taken out our sentry."

"Gone, sir? That's hard news." Benton said unhappily.

"All men are to work in teams from this point on."

"Yessir."

"Should we leave him here, or move him down, sir?" One of the men asked, looking down at the Doctor where he lay on the floor.

Benton replied. "Leave him. If I know the Doc, he'll be popping back up before too long. Williams, fetch that cot from the middle room, next to the wardrobe. That'll do for now."

"Yes, best we keep everything together on one level," agreed the Brigadier. "Sergeant, you're to stay here with Miss Grant and the Doctor. Extra guards will be placed around this tower until we can locate where that creature went off to."

"We hit it pretty well with those fancy torches, sir," Benton observed. "Hopefully it'll be out of action for a while."

The Brigadier gave a nod. "We'll redistribute our resources according to the situation as it changes." He paused to watch two of the men lifting his scientific advisor's limp figure to the cot they'd rapidly carried in and unfolded, Jo offering advice for their every move. "Let me know if anything changes. I think he'll be in good hands here."

He turned and did a brief scan out the windows as the men who'd been sent to sweep the rooms returned, indicating an all-clear. "Very well. Keep me updated." They tromped down the stairs, leaving Benton and Jo looking at one another as they listened to the receding footsteps and voices.

It was quiet.

"I wish we had something besides these little torches," Benton groused after a moment.

"Something undramatic about it, isn't there?" Jo said and smiled. Her smile faded as she turned back to where the Doctor still lay, unmoving and cold on the cot. "We can't let that creature get at him while he's like this."

"No, Miss," Benton said seriously. "He'll wake up in a bit, but I think we better not let our guard down in the meantime." He moved to the other side of the cot, each of them facing away so they could better cover the room.

"You think it left? I mean, really left this time?"

"I hope so. But I won't assume it again."

"I know what you mean." There was a long silence. Jo could feel the cold radiating from the Doctor's prone figure. She shivered at just the thought of being that cold and resisted the urge to bundle him under a bunch of blankets.

"You know," she said just to break the silence. "He's going to give me such a lecture when he wakes up."

"Why's that, Miss?"

"I broke his machine. The one that he wanted to use to talk to it. Stomped it to pieces."

"You did?" Benton sounded both slightly shocked and amused at this news.

"I did. And what's more, I enjoyed doing it. I'll have to make it up to him somehow. Spend lots of time agreeing with him and flattering him maybe, and not argue a bit. Not one bit. And tea. I'll make him lots of tea."

"With sugar," Benton said. She could tell he was smiling.

"Plenty of it," she agreed. "And I shan't complain." It helped both of them, this small talk to lighten the mood when they were worried, her for her friend, him for both of them. They waited. Benton shared a couple stories about the Doctor's crazy driving, Jo about his rigging up an elaborate machine to impress visiting dignitaries that later on turned out to do nothing more than make cocoa. Their talk wound down; the room was quiet. A fly bumped around near one of the windows. Jo fetched a packet of biscuits from the table and shared them with the Sergeant as they waited.

"How long you think he'll be out?" Benton wondered out loud.

"Well, he's been worse."

"Been better too. That thing with his arm, that didn't look too good to me."

Jo shivered again, this time not from cold. "Wasn't that strange? I hate how it makes people dizzy too. I need to find my sea-legs if this keeps happening. Something to do with it being all loopity-looped on itself or something."

"Loopity-looped?"

"You know what I mean."

"To tell the truth, I don't think I understand half of what goes on in this job."

Jo gave a little giggle. "Neither do I. But I won't tell if you don't."

They fell back into a watchful, companionable silence. Jo glanced at her watch. It had been not quite an hour since he'd gone under. It felt much longer. Out of bedside-manner habit she reached out a hand and gently touched his forehead, as if to check for a fever. It was like touching a block of ice.

She pulled her hand back, glancing from the corner of her eye to see if Benton had noticed. If he had, he gave no sign. She scanned her side of the room again, comforted by the sturdy reliability of her companion. The radio spat static followed by the Brigadier's voice. She jumped.

"Rapunzel!" he said briefly, "Report!"

Benton picked it up. "Rapunzel here, sir. The prince is still out cold, no sign of the rabbit."

"Game wardens remain on watch," the Brigadier replied. "No rabbit tracks reported at this time. Let me know the minute the prince wakes up."

"Yessir. Rapunzel out."

"I wonder if it's recovering too," Jo said. "Remember, last time it got hit with that scattering-type light thing it didn't show up again for a whole day."

"Maybe. It could be sleeping it off." Benton nodded. "If it sleeps."

They both glanced down at their charge again and were surprised to see some color returning to his face. Jo reached down and tentatively smoothed the Doctor's grey-white hair back. He was chilled, but warming up. She sat on the edge of the cot and laid her hand over his.

"Already?" Benton wondered out loud. Jo nodded and smiled down at the quiet Time Lord. She could see his chest beginning to rise and fall again more normally, feel warmth coming back into his hand. His hand turned under hers, feeling her small hand in his and clasping it briefly with a reassuring squeeze.

"I'll be all right, Jo," he whispered, his eyes still closed. She briefly smoothed his hair back from his forehead. It was warm.

"Rapunzel to Greyhound," Benton's voice was saying into the radio. "The prince is awake. All well so far, more details when we know them. Rapunzel out."

"Prince?" the Doctor murmured.

"That's you," Jo said.

He gave a faint smile. "How long?" he asked.

"Only an hour or so, sir," Benton put in.

"Good." He opened his eyes and tried to sit up, accepting Benton's ready hand to help him. "Forgive me, still a touch dizzy. Had to cut things short. Any sign of it?"

"Not since it was chased off. We thought it might be recovering too."

"Possible," he said, rubbing his temples. "But my communication with it wasn't entirely unsuccessful."

"You talked with it?" Jo said, surprised. She glanced guiltily back at the remains of the machine she'd stomped, still laying on the floor by the table.

He didn't seem to notice, turning and rotating his arm and hand reflectively. "Not quite talking, more like receiving information through getting a nasty shock. Does make it a bit difficult to exchange pleasantries, as you saw." He grimaced. "Unfortunately, one thing I do know is that it intends to have a go at me again. It sees things as patterns and would very much like to add me to its collection. Thinks I can get it off this planet, which I sincerely doubt. And I'm obviously not inclined to be collected either way."

He stood and walked a bit unsteadily back to the table. Leaning on it, he considered the projects piled on the cluttered surface. "We need a way to locate it, so it can't catch us by surprise so easily. I was starting to work on something of the sort, but haven't had time… well, it wouldn't have been quite right anyway. I know I can get it right now. As I said, a hard way to gain knowledge, but it is gained nonetheless."

"A monster detector?" Benton asked.

"A fractal-based life form detector," the Doctor corrected irritably. "That creature is around here somewhere. Better we know where." He picked up one of the objects, discarded part of it and reached for a battery pack.

"Are you sure you're all right?" Jo asked hesitantly.

"Time for resting after we have what we need," he replied shortly. "Where did…"

"Doctor! There it is!" Jo cried suddenly, pointing past him. A swirling mass of frosty light surged in through one of the small windows, rapidly changing to gold, tipped with feathers of red.

Benton turned, reaching for the scatter-light he'd tucked in his belt. At least he meant to turn. As it brushed past him, he hadn't counted on the floor abruptly tilting beneath his feet, nor on the formerly upright walls angling in on him in odd ways that wouldn't hold still. He fumbled for the light, getting it into his hand.

The floor inexplicably came up to meet him and he cried out, barely having time to put up an arm to keep it from smacking into his face, dismayed as his light was knocked from his hand, skittering off at an odd forty-five degree angle. He tasted blood from a split lip. Realizing what he was facing was in fact a floor, he fought against what his body insisted was 'down' and pushed his knees against it, but all he got for his efforts was a violent roll to the left. His stomach, normally not prone to motion-sickness, was being severely tested.

He clenched his eyes shut; it didn't help. He opened them to find the legs of the table lurching past like telegraph poles at sea. He was aware of the Doctor shouting something; frantic at the thought he was leaving them unprotected, he found the floor again, this time off to his right, and tried to lever himself 'up' from it. He took a snatch at the table leg as it went by and missed, cursing.

Somewhere up above him Jo was screaming. Something hit the back of his legs, a weight that helped pin him to the elusive floor, but made him fear the worst for one of his companions.

"Jo…" gasped the one behind him, a despairing sound; the Doctor. The room was silent. What then, had happened to Miss Grant?

. . .

The attack was so sudden, and so soon after his partial recovery that the Doctor was taken by surprise. In the fraction of a moment it took him to turn from the table he found it already rolling towards him, no hanging in the air and assessing its prey this time. He was only partly aware of the Sergeant staggering and falling to the floor before it; it came at him directly, a hound on the scent.

He tensed himself as against it, throwing up mental barricades. His arm was still a known weak spot to both himself and his adversary. Unable to stop it, he pulled in a breath as the white fire shot out, covering his hand once again. But with that touch came something much more alarming - a realization that this time it intended to go after his hearts, to convert him from the inside out.

He grit his teeth and slammed down on it with all the mental and emotive forces he could muster, which were still considerable. He hoped Jo had the sense to stay back, he dare not break concentration to see where she was. Bracing himself against the returning vertigo, he forced the frost and fire into retreat by sheer will. He knew it could be done now, he knew the process was not inevitable. It could be driven off. That confidence gave him strength.

And it took strength.

He was pushing against a terrible force, pushing a ship out into sea against the strength of the tide, all alone. But it did move. It moved back, and in doing so began losing its cohesion against him. There was a flare, then its grip broken, it washed back from him to reconvene. He realized with brief confusion that he had somehow ended up on his knees. He climbed back to his feet as it surged up again. And Jo…

"No! Jo, stay back!"

"Get away from him!" she cried, grabbing up the small scatter-light from the cot where she'd left it.

The alien ignored her, punching its thickly netted light-tendril straight at his chest again. With an effort, he repelled it. He felt its determination and insidiousness beating at his mind.

But it had learned from him, even as he had learned from it. He felt its purpose and impulses; it, blocked from his mind, ferreted from him a weakness of another kind. Unable to reach past his mental barriers or gain a hold on him physically, it switched tactics.

Jo screamed as it suddenly swerved, swaying away from him to abruptly net her in a mantle of red-gold feathers. The scatter-light fell uselessly from her hand, her arms captured in it, already beginning to change.

"No!" Horrified, the Doctor tried to reach for her, to protect her. He grabbed at her hand, reached his other hand to her hair, her temple. He knew it was an act of desperation and he would have to apologize for it later, but he forced himself into her startled mind as gently as a thief breaking down a door. There was no time.

There really was no time.

It was like trying to gather the pieces of a sandcastle as the waves were washing it away. He threw himself at the effort, trying to wall it out of her being, but he was too late, too weary, perhaps still too wounded himself.

Her wide, frightened eyes looked straight into his, clouded to silver, and then she was gone. Jo's form faded to gold, silver, white, then nothing but a glimmer.

His stinging hands were grasping at nothing, at sparks of fire. The contact with her broke with a snap-back of his own mental energies that physically made him stagger back. He tripped over something on the floor and fell heavily. "Jo….!"

Dear Jo, brave Jo, foolish Jo… inwardly he cursed a thousand curses this small world had never heard before. It had found his heart. It knew he would do anything to get her back.


	9. Chapter 9

**Part 8**

 _Now lies the Earth all Danaë to the stars…_

. . .

"It all happened so fast, sir," Benton was saying, not for the first time. "Jumped us, right through the window." He was still struggling with what he felt had been an abject failure to protect them. The Brigadier ignored him, going over papers on his table-cum-desk.

He ticked off a short list on a memo pad. "The men are patrolling the garden boundaries round the clock. We've an extra watch on that landing site as well as on your tower, Doctor. And as I said I would, for there's no question now that it has been proved the aggressor, the order has been given for the men to move the boundary devices inward on the hour. We will gradually tighten the noose until we can know where it is so we can at least contain it."

"You might be tightening that noose on Jo as well," the Doctor noted with frustration.

"So, you really do think she is still alive?"

"Yes. Not only because it communicated to me that its intent was to take a hostage, but also because of those ferns."

"The ferns?" Lethbridge-Stewart's eyebrows quirked upward.

"You'll note in my report that the first set of ferns were completely consumed, as were the first set of men. The second ones were only fractalized. I surmise this is what has happened to Jo. The first men were experimental samplings, also sacrificial samplings, I fear. It learned the patterning of human beings from them. It was partly why I was able to resist it as well as I could when it came after me, my own patterning is, as you know, not quite human. It's a reasonable assumption that Jo is very much alive, just changed."

"But can she be changed back?" he asked.

"I sincerely hope so," he said emphatically. "That is what I am trying to achieve. Also, it is worth nothing that it wanted my knowledge, but not with the intent to destroy me. I wanted to… well, absorb me, if you will. To add me to its catalogue of available patterns. Based on this, I expect Jo has become one of those patterns it would preserve, though I am unsure if that means she is effectively stored away for reference, or still maintains a separate existence of her own."

"Filed away?" Benton looked pained.

"Unpleasant thought," the Brigadier noted.

"Very. One of the most thoroughly unpleasant thoughts I should ever want to contemplate, but better than her being gone. After all anything kept in storage can potentially be released, if we can only find the right key to open the box."

"That poor girl…" the Brigadier murmured.

"If only it hadn't been able to recover so quickly…" He had his share of regrets as well.

"You're pretty quick at recovering yourself, Doc. Gave it a real run for its money, at least." Benton checked the kettle heating on a hot-plate to the side and rummaged for the tea.

"Not quite quick enough…" the Doctor said unhappily. He crossed to where something like a ticker-tape machine was slowly spouting a curl of paper and ran the curl through his fingers to read it. "Hm."

"So, do we have any definite course of action we can pursue?" the Brigadier asked.

"As a start point, I now know where it's from," he said, dropping the curl and coming over to the table. "The information was confusing, partly because of the vantage point and impressions, well, you couldn't really call them memories. Nonetheless what I did see matches up with the chemical and elemental traces as well as its method of arrival."

"What is it?" the Brigadier asked. "Be brief, if you can."

The Doctor gave him an annoyed look and continued. "Are you familiar with the Perseid meteor showers, Lethbridge-Stewart? They're observed annually, have been for over 2000 earth years. Now, meteor showers occur when a planet, in this case the Earth, moves through the meteor stream, in this case the Perseid cloud which follows along the orbit of a large comet." He sketched circular movements in the air with his fingers to illustrate. "The cloud itself is caused by particles boiled off the comet as it travels near the sun. Are you still with me?"

"Meteor showers from a cloud from a comet. Are you nearly to your point?" He stepped aside as Benton brought the hot kettle to the table, setting it on a folded jacket for lack of a trivet, then went back for cups and sugar.

"Bear with me. What your astronomers do not know is that there is a race that lives among these meteoric clouds, and they have been following these comets for thousands of years. They migrate within the cloud, like barnacles on a ship. But our particular meteor-like creature somehow became separated from its kind and after a bit of wandering it ended up here."

"So, it's a…living meteorite?" The Brigadier frowned.

"Not a common inanimate meteorite, obviously. I don't know if it attached itself to an actual mineral meteorite and rode it down or quite how it carried it out, but it does explain why there was no trace of a ship. It never had one, it's designed for space travel itself. The meteor cloud it lives among is derived from the comet's substance. Their race uses such meteoric clouds to either hide among or travel with as their natural environment."

"Perseid, did you say?" the Brigadier still looked a little puzzled by the concept. He accepted a cup of tea from Benton and blew on it briefly.

"So named because from the vantage point of Earth they would appear to be coming from the constellation Perseus, hence the Perseid cloud. Obviously they're much closer, of course."

"Perseus," Benton mused. "Wasn't he that Greek chap, the one who invented geometry?"

"No, he was a Greek chap who was a mythical hero. Carried out a variety of quests including the slaying of Medusa." The Doctor perused the read-outs one more time, then helped himself to a cup of tea. "Supposedly born after Zeus came to his mother, Danaë, in the form of a golden rain. A demi-god, if you will." He waved his hand. "But that isn't the point. The point is our alien friend here is outside his usual habitat. The Perseid meteor shower has been visible during Earth's summer for over 2000 years. Why would this one arrive alone, in April, and then singularly fall afoul of the Earth's gravitational pull as well?"

"Hardly an invasion then," the Brigadier noted.

"No, I don't think so." He took a sip, and reached for the sugar.

Benton looked thoughtful. "An emergency landing, you think? I mean, that kind of thing could happen to anyone, couldn't it?"

"Perhaps. Why this one was so isolated from the rest of its kind and passing this planet by so early - or we might surmise, quite late - we really have no idea." The Doctor glanced up at him from dropping sugar-cubes into his tea. "It may have been a fault of the season, the pilot, or something else we can't even fathom."

"Or it's a renegade?" Benton suggested. "Maybe it didn't intend to be staying here voluntarily, but got stuck here against its will?"

The Doctor gave him a sharp look. The Sergeant didn't meet his eyes but instead seemed inordinately interested in swirling his tea.

"Well, then we'll have something in common, won't we?" he grumbled and took a long drink from his own cup. "Its foremost problem is that it has no way back. Even if it could find a way to free itself of our atmosphere, it would still be in isolation and without a comet to feed from. Its only hope to regain its natural habitat would be to rejoin the meteor cloud in August."

"You mean it's stranded here until August?" the Brigadier sat back in his chair, looking concerned. "We can't police an invisible alien force for four or five months without someone getting hurt, or worse, my superiors thinking I'm making it all up and just having a holiday in the countryside."

"Do you really think it will take that long, then?" Benton asked curiously.

The Doctor set down his cup and leaned on the table, steepling his fingers thoughtfully. "Even if it lives that long, I don't see any way it could rejoin its species. Near as I can tell, it has no resources for any other kind of transport. The only solution I can think of would be to rig some sort of signal, a beacon or distress call if you will. Perhaps it could gain aid from its own kind that way."

The Brigadier looked at him in disbelief. "You want to help it? After what it's done?"

"I want it to go back to its own environment and leave us alone, yes," he snapped. "There isn't anything to be gained in concepts of revenge and justice with a creature that can barely comprehend our ways of thought. It is quite alien, yes, and it's taken a hostage, but I still would not condemn it to a lonely death solely on that basis."

The Brigadier shook his head. "A signal would only attract more of these…Perseid things, wouldn't it? I can't allow that risk, Doctor. You yourself admit that you cannot control this thing, aside from these bug-repellent torches and blinkers of yours. What's to prevent them from deciding amongst themselves that our world is theirs for the taking?"

"So, you would condemn an intelligent being to exile simply out of fear?"

"Yes. Yes I would, if it meant that human lives could be saved. My duty lies with Earth, Doctor, and to Miss Grant first, as well as all the other people who live here. And while I realize that your own loyalties may on occasion be strained, I ask you to bear in mind the men who have already gone missing, apparently dead, including one of our own. Good God, man, we don't even know what it really eats! What if those men were its food, has that ever occurred to you?"

There was a pause as the Doctor reined in his temper and tried again. "Yes, it has occurred to me and been explored. I don't entirely understand where it draws its energy from, but I can assure you it is not a common hunter and has no use for proteins from living creatures. Remember, in its natural environment there are no living beings to even hunt. Most likely it draws its energy from some sort of solar radiation combined with a consumption at the molecular level of mineral elements as they are produced by the meteoric cloud."

Lethbridge-Stewart frowned. "So...is it radioactive as well, then?"

The Doctor crunched a stray sugar cube. "Not harmfully so, no. I absorbs it, perhaps, but does not give much off. My point is it will not become a hunter of any living thing out of hunger. Though it may very well starve to death, lacking its true food. I'm sure the level of solar radiation and the density of planetary minerals here are useless for it. It needs time to recover between each event and may already be growing weaker. Even if we fed it..."

"Fed it? With what?" Benton asked, intrigued in spite of himself.

"With airborne, pulverized mineral elements, perhaps..." the Doctor mused. "If we heated them…"

"I have no intention of feeding it," the Brigadier stated flatly.

"It would be inadequate anyway," the Doctor continued, discarding the idea. "Short of returning to the Perseid meteor cloud, I expect there's really very little hope for it."

"A fish out of water," Benton nodded.

"Or a fish in an empty fishbowl," the Doctor amended.

"How long will it take to starve to death, then?" the Brigadier asked.

The Doctor looked at him, a small flash of anger in his eyes at the callousness. "I don't know."

The Brigadier tapped his paper with the tip of the pen. "I don't want to appear cold-hearted, Doctor, but there are other aspects of this situation I must address. For one thing the money needed to keep these men stationed here, the pressure to reopen a public tourist destination nearing its peak time. Like it or not, I must answer for it. If its expiration is inevitable we simply cannot wait about forever for it to happen."

"So you'll hurry it along?" The Doctor asked sarcastically. "Oh pardon me, I'm sure you'll be very humane as you murder it."

The Brigadier's face went very still but his eyes flashed darkly in reply. When he spoke again it was with carefully measured tones. "As I said, I humored your desire to study this entity. But it has shown itself to be an aggressor and a danger to human lives. You yourself were wounded by it, apparently with forethought and deliberation on its part, and Miss Grant has now been captured by it. I shall do whatever is in my power to put an end to that danger in the most timely method available. The only thing holding us back at this time is the possibility of recovering her."

The Doctor looked slightly mollified. "You're right, of course. I just never like to see any sentient creature condemned to death in ignorance of its crimes." He got up and paced back and forth by the table restlessly, trying to convince himself. "But it had already shown the ability to learn about us, and it understood being resisted. Yes, I must admit it had no reason to take her except as a hostage, bait, if you will, for me. A complex set of reasoning, but deliberate." He looked down, fiddling with his cuff unhappily.

"Will you help us find some way to defeat this creature, Doctor, or won't you?" The Brigadier never was one to beat around the bush.

"Yes," he answered with reluctance. "I will."


	10. Chapter 10

**Part 9**

 _And all thy heart lies open unto me._

. . .

The night was too quiet.

The Doctor stopped, running a hand through his hair with frustration. There were so many times he thought he had wanted her to stop chattering so he could think, to not be knocking over his carefully balanced experiments… but it was so terribly, terribly quiet. Not even the sound of her stirring in her sleep, as he sometimes had for company while fiddling with TARDIS repair attempts, late nights back at the lab.

He got up and paced over to the small window, looking out at the stars. It was an unusually clear night for April. He wished he could call to her, show her some of the constellations while they were visible, tell her about them.

Letting out a long breath, he went back to the table where the casing from a borrowed handheld slide-viewer lay open, stuffed with multiple lighting elements and wires. The right calibre of wire was hunted around for, clipped and touched by the soldering iron to seal it into place. If it worked as it ought to, he hoped he would soon have something that could detect the presence of anything with a fractal nature, even if it were invisible to the human eye.

He touched it experimentally with a bit of voltage. A spark crackled and arced where it shouldn't. Yes, if it would only work as it ought to. He mumbled to himself about primitive equipment and tried again.

Something touched him, touched his cheek. Barely discernable, like the brush of a flower petal, or a feather.

He froze.

"Who's there?" he asked, turning carefully. The circular room was empty, but he could feel it, a presence with him, a living energy.

A faint white glimmer briefly faded in, quite near him. He considered it, slowly sliding his other hand across the table to where his partly-repaired scattering-light lay.

It disappeared, then touched him again on the back of the hand as he went to grasp it. It was only the lightest glimmering, and there was no hostility in it. He felt instead, a snippet of fear, loneliness and timidity, and it was not his own.

He stopped and cocked his head inquiringly, hope flaring up in his chest. "Jo? Jo, is that you?"

The white shimmer returned briefly, a faint but approximately petite-human form, then faded out again, only that silvery feather's touch brushing his hand as it went. He felt emotions communicated in that touch: hope, despair, weariness, longing, determination, shyness.

If she was a free agent in any sense of the word, an individual who might even be able to communicate with him… Even her sharing of emotive levels would be helpful. He waited patiently, but the glimmer did not return. How much energy had it taken her to become visible? Had she worn herself out, been pulled away by that creature?

"Jo?"

Nothing. There was no sense of her presence in the room, he was alone again.

He turned to the radio com. "Rapunzel to Greyhound," he said.

There was a pause. It was well after midnight, he had no idea who was on duty. "Greyhound here," Lethbridge-Stewart's voice responded. "Do you need help?"

"You should be sleeping, Brigadier," the Doctor chided. "No emergency. I've just had a visitor though."

"Visitor? Human or alien?"

"You could say both. A presence came into the room, then faded out. It appeared to be Miss Grant."

"What? Miss Grant? What do you mean, faded out?"

"She was only barely visible, as a light pattern. She communicated faint emotional pulses, then disappeared. It was quite brief. I thought you ought to know in case she comes looking for you as well."

"Sounds like a ghost. Are you sure you were awake?"

"Quite," the Doctor said firmly. "This was no dream. We have no idea what it took for her to manifest in this way. but she's a very resourceful girl. I'm working on a tool I can use to locate her more efficiently. I'll let you know if anything else comes up."

"All right then. Anything we can do?"

"Yes. In considering this, I've had to conclude that Jo may be injured by those scattering-lights in her current form. The men will have to stand down on those for her safety."

"But… they're all we have to…" the Brigadier protested.

"And they could kill Miss Grant! I don't trust your trigger-happy fools to not shoot her if she should manage to show up again. Keep them, but they must stand down, at least for now."

"I understand. Of course. I'll send out the order at once."

"Thank you, Brigadier. Then get some sleep. Rapunzel out."

He switched off and turned back to his project with renewed drive. If only he could get it to run as it ought…

He spoke as he worked. "Jo, just in case you can hear me: I have some ideas. Take courage, my dear, we'll find some way to get you back. Just give me some time."

Even without anyone to interrupt him, it was after three in the morning before he was able to venture out of the tower, a bulky wedge-shaped gadget fastened to the end of a long cannabalized torch handle in his hand, extra batteries in his jacket pocket.

Prowling around the garden paths in the night with it, he inadvertantly startled more than one set of patrolling guards, his white hair apparently appearing suspicious to them as he moved about in the darkness, followed by embarrassed apologies when they recognized him.

"Alien!" he heard a voice hiss, on the other side of a low hedge at one point. Startled, he spun around himself lest it catch him unaware - then heard another voice whispering "That's the Doctor, you idiot!"

He rolled his eyes and continued, methodically scanning up and down each of the garden's walking paths. Every now and then he'd get a reading, a brief blipping from his device as it reacted to a living pattern, but all he found were ferns, trees and similar plantlife. He also discovered that it would pick up on the soldiers if they were near enough, most likely due to the fractal-like patterns found in humans such as their veins and tracheal branching. Mulling on how to make adjustments to the sensitivity of the data and its selection, he looked up to find he had followed a sweeping curve all the way around to a side-entrance on the car park.

Considering checking in at the quiet military tent for tea, his shoes crunched across the gravel. The device blipped.

He immediately stopped and turned in a careful circle. Blip. Blip. Following the direction of the signal, he suddenly realized he was looking at Bessie, the little yellow roadster now grey in the moonlight. There was a faint glimmer beside her.

He almost ran across the intervening space. "Jo?" He couldn't see anything. He turned another slow circle, watching the feedback. There she was, or something was…

He leaned his back against Bessie's quarter-panel and took a breath, scrutinizing the empty space around him. "Are you there?" he asked gently. "Can you hear me?"

Again, it felt like a rose petal had drifted across his hand, no more, but the emotions came with that tenative touch. Worry, frustration, an emptiness he could only surmise as homesickness…

He opened his arms, inviting. He had no idea if she could even percieve the gesture, but after a moment he could see the shimmering, ever so faint, near his chest on the right. The proximity brought a dipping, whirling sensation, much gentler than the hard vertigo the alien had generated. He braced himself lightly against Bessie's cool side, remaining steady, keeping his arm out as if she were there…well, she was, after a fashion. Faint silver feathers radiated from her presence, touched his side, his arm. Again, her emotions came through that touch, but much stronger this time. Gratitude, hope, insecurity, determination, fear, and to his surprise and yet not, a deep affection. For him. He bit his lower lip reflectively. Her heart was open to him, but not her reasoning. He expected she could not selectively choose what to show or not show. He must tread carefully for he didn't know how much of his own emotions might be open to her either, and there, he decided, he must be very, very careful indeed.

"I've this," he said, conversationally indicating the device, "to help me find you now. It's a start. Talk to me, if you can, my dear." He offered a hand, palm up. Inwardly, he was ever so carefully constructing a guard upon his mind and especially upon his inward feelings. When the next feather-touch came, he was more ready for it, though it did surprise him that her touch brushed his cheek instead of his hand as he had expected.

Loneliness, weariness, longing for his protection…all in a moment's soft impulse. He tried sending something back to her in that same way, encouragement, mostly, with a good dose of steadiness, comfort and reassurance mixed in.

"Take courage, Jo," he added out loud. "We won't leave you like this." He hated to think of her trapped in this transitory form, this dear bright girl, so generous in sharing her energy and life with everyone around her, so patient with him in his moods. She was unique and so sweet, he wished he could somehow gather her up, keep her safe, hold her in his arms…

He caught himself in surprise. What in the world was this? His own hearts were being opened to her, more than he thought prudent or even realistic, and now they were being tangled up in Jo's emotions somehow... echoing hers instead of telling their own. It was most disconcerting. He rapidly shored his inner walls back up, wondering how a moment's inattention had caused them to tumble.

He couldn't feel anything from her now. Squinting at the air, looking for her, he found her presence was already fading. She must have been worn out. "Come to me when you can," he said quickly. "Once we have a plan, you'll need to know what to expect."

He had no idea if she'd understood; he couldn't feel her anymore, not at all. Pulling his device back up, he turned about with it. Nothing; he was alone again. He walked in a wide circle around the car, panning around as he did so but the only reading came from a small fern sprouting up from a bordering rock. Just in case she was merely resting, he climbed up onto Bessie's front seat, waiting for a time, just thinking and watching the dim clouds move across the sky as the moon began to set. Time passed, but she did not return. A mist came up from the Fal as the sky began to lighten.

He heard footsteps approaching, the beam of an electric torch briefly flicking across his shoulders.

Sergeant Benton's friendly face brought him out of his reverie. "Good morning, Doctor. Thought that was you, but expected I ought to have a closer look. Wouldn't do to have someone playing about with ol' Bessie now, would it?"

"No," he agreed. "Though someone was a short while ago. I wish I could get her to return."

"Who?" Benton frowned. "Someone you know?"

"Miss Grant. She's been changed but she's very much alive, Sergeant. I've seen her twice now, barely visible."

"Well, that's marvelous news!" Benton smiled. "But… barely visible?"

"You'd take her for a spirit, I expect. Made up something to track her with and found her here, flitting around Bessie. Didn't you get the message from the Brigadier?"

"Only that we weren't to use those lights of yours anymore."

"Good," he said dryly. "Nice to know he managed that much, even if he didn't explain. Typical. Look, I don't want any of your men to go shooting beams at that poor girl, she's going through enough as it is. Those lights…."

"They'd hurt her, then?" Benton asked, his face now serious.

"Possibly kill her," he corrected gravely. "She's in a fractal, light-emitting form herself now though she isn't as strong as our alien visitor. Barely shows up at all, and that only for the briefest moments. Your men need to know what to expect or the supersitious lot will probably think she's a ghost."

"I'll send out the word."

"They're a bit jumpy, you know. One of them declared I was an alien last night when I was out walking." He gave the Sergeant a sudden flash of a smile. "Imagine that. Now, do you have any tea in that tent of yours? I could use some before I go back to work, and I want a word with the Brigadier as soon as he wakes."


	11. Chapter 11

**Part 10**

 _Now slides the silent meteor on…_

. . .

The morning was growing old by the time the Doctor paused to straighten his back and finally drink a cup of tea long gone tepid. He cast a critical eye over the half-done work, reviewing the design concept and calculations in his head. Yes, if his understanding of the creature they were facing was correct, this would effectively destroy it.

He hated to design weapons, hated being brought to the point that he could see no other effective solution. All he could do was regard it as a mercy killing.

The trigger-happy Brigadier would have to be sworn to not use it until Jo was safely recovered from its grasp. Lethbridge-Stewart was a man of honor, but he had never entirely trusted him in the area of explosives, at least not since that dratted event with the Silurians. At least this weapon would hardly be conventional, which he hoped would help. It would be of little use for Man against other men.

Tilting the reflective surface of the inner casing, he checked again for any flaws before sealing it into its tube. He just couldn't keep his thoughts focused on it. Frustrated, he set it aside and turned to his other device, the one that should help them retrieve Jo… provided the first one worked. He had high hopes for this one, it being a variation on the experimental one he'd been forced to press into service with himself as guinea-pig. From personal experience he knew it felt odd and somewhat uncomfortable, yes, but didn't hurt.

He didn't want her hurt.

She'd had more than her fair share of that, lately, he reflected. She'd probably been hurt and frightened out of her wits more since she'd become his assistant than in her entire young life beforehand. And yet he'd never wanted her hurt.

He adjusted a setting and ran a diagnostic over it again, musing. Had she been alone? Had it been using her as a go-between, sending her to him? There'd been no sign of it, no hint of duplicity in her communication. But she was a hostage, essentially, and as such he needed to be careful. Come to think of it, it was surprising she'd been alone both times he'd encountered her. Was it trying to bait him into a will-o-the-wisp chase, intending to ambush? How much cunning had it learned?

Too many questions, not enough answers. Life as usual. But too quiet.

Three hours later he had one machine working as it ought, the other nearly so and his original Jo-stomped one partly repaired. He'd run out of biscuits and after heating a kettle had discovered the room was also empty of tea. Not wanting to be interrupted, he'd settled for drinking hot water with the last of the sugar cubes in it and kept going. He was just thinking of stretching his legs and fetching something more substantial from the canteen when a sparkle glimmered, over by the stairwell.

He spun to face it, then carefully backed to the table as he considered the apparition. It slowly drifted into the room and stopped.

"Jo?" he asked hesitantly.

What he could make out was the right height, but there was something indefinably different. A harder spark to the glitter, perhaps, a lacking in softness, a pulling back. His hand carefully reached back and found the scattering-device by feel, just in case it was a deception.

His other hand tentatively reached forward, offering a wary chance at communication.

A faint silver feather extended out, brushed his fingertips for only the briefest moment. In that flash he felt Jo's presence, and with it a warning, distress, frustration, a fierce protectiveness towards him.

With it also came the awareness of something that he'd missed: a silvery line, faintly stretching between where she was and the stairwell.

His eyes darkened at the thought and his face went stern and still. It had her on a leash. She'd been alone before, but she'd been found. He strengthened his own mental walls, pulling back inside himself lest it use his emotions toward her to trap him. The communication went both ways; it was using her to hook him then, to bring him in.

"Oh no you don't," he murmured. "This fish is not so easily reeled in as all that…"

Jo's presence advanced towards him, but the line behind her grew thicker, more visible as she did so and there was no move made to reach out to him. He surmised she was being pushed, and stepped aside to avoid her. She was propelled towards him again, and again he stepped away. This odd cat-and-mouse around the small room repeated several times, helped by the fact it was a rounded room so it was impossible to corner him, even with his feet unsteady from the disorientation that always accompanied it.

The only emotion he allowed to crack open was defiance, flavored with his hatred of what it was doing to her, had already done to her. At the very least, he wanted it to understand that. It was unjust; if it had any concept of justice, he wanted it to know.

Apparently frustrated that its ruse had been unsuccessful, the Perseid creature lifted up into the room itself, a silver-gold, pulsating net at the top of the stairs. In a glance, he registered that it was noticeably weaker than the last time he'd encountered it, fainter in intensity and slower in movement; the lower-level fractalizations of silver-white dominant, with only streaks of the stronger gold and none of the red. He wondered how much of its weakness was from the strain of controlling Jo, and how much was starvation.

They regarded one another for a heartbeat, alien and alien.

It surged a line of power between itself and Jo. The mist-feathered white glimmering that was her being seemed to fold on itself for a moment. He froze, fearing she was being injured, or tortured, feeling helpless to stop it. She came closer, a flickering line of white abruptly extended to brush his arm as he danced back.

A desire for cream-cakes.

Two things about this communication astonished him: first, that the emotive attack he knew she was being forced into sending, and that he was braced against, was instead such a small and mundane feeling.

Cream-cakes? Well, yes, Jo had often expressed how much she liked them, and he therefore certainly knew it was from her and not from any alien. His heart warmed with pride for her cleverness. She'd been forced to send something at him, so she'd deliberately chosen something completely innocuous.

The other unexpected effect was that it was building. That touch had apparently launched an emotive bomb at him, a fractal emotive that repeated in upon itself in a repetitious cycle. A desire for cream-cakes echoed through his mind, growing stronger as it layered upon itself. It reverberated in his being, amplifying until it seemed inescapable, a ridiculous, burning, frantic grasping for a meaningless sweet.

He was still glad she'd shown she was not just a tool, that she retained some level of independence, but as it built until he thought he would go mad with this foreign longing, pounding waves for a mundane dessert, he wished she'd chosen something else. Anything else. Well, not anything. It was completely, utterly ludicrous and painful, and it had to stop, but he hated to think of what the deeper emotions of the previous night would have done; it could have destroyed him.

He brandished the scatter-light and moved around the wall. As he expected, the creature pushed Jo towards him but retreated to the stairwell itself, stretching out thinly to maintain the link between its hostage and itself. The Doctor shook his head briefly, trying to focus beyond the now desperately loud call of hunger that pervaded the air. He balanced carefully, finding his sea-legs through the dizziness, then jumped.

With a strong leap forward, he put himself right between the alien and his assistant, bringing the light up to bear on her captor now that she was safely behind him.

Faster than he could register, it responded by pulling her in, yanking her back like a small dog at the end of a chain. She was behind him, and then in a blink she wasn't; it placed her squarely in front of itself, using her as a shield. He almost missed it, it was so fast and she was so faintly defined, blending in with itself.

He nearly shot her. He gasped, and actually dropped the light in shock at the near-miss, snatching it back up with a surge of anger and frustration. He tried to jockey around to get a side-shot at it, furious that it would stoop so low, that it would sacrifice her to save itself, risk her being slain by his own hands. He managed to barely graze it at the back, he dare not bring the beam any closer.

He began to work around to try hitting it from the other side, when it suddenly retreated. Perhaps overextended, or overwhelmed, or intimidated - He didn't know why, but it simply, abruptly gave up the attack. It faded out, sliding down the stairwell, pulling Jo with it all in an instant running away. He began to pursue it, half-tumbling down the stairs in his haste, but they were both too-quickly invisible to the eye, too completely vanished.

Stopping three-quarters down, he leaned heavily on the cool stone wall, then slumped to the steps to catch his breath and let the vertigo subside. His head hurt, his arm throbbed where she'd touched it. There was no use in pursuit; he was needed to finish the tools that would free her.

He rubbed his aching forehead and sighed. At least the emotional grenade she'd sent had gone with them. His mind gratefully soaked up the internal silence that followed that storm. He thought he'd never be able to eat another cream-cake for the rest of his life.

. . .

"…So you see, it's preserved her patterning. She seems to be keeping her original form and personality, within reason," The Doctor explained as he, Benton and the Brigadier walked across the lot to the waiting tent, their shadows stretching out beside them in the afternoon's light. "While there are random variables within what this century loosely terms 'chaos theory,' within each pattern, even a seemingly random one, there can be found small copies of the original patterning. Now, if the original pattern can be isolated and repeated in a stabilized way by a…"

"What I don't understand is why it's kept her alive while we've seen no sign of those men." The Brigadier suddenly interrupted, nodding to the sentry at the tent's entrance as they approached. "Have you an answer for that? You've lost me on the rest of this scientific blather."

"Blather?" The Doctor paused, then resignedly abandoned his explanation to try another answer. "It's a bit like those fern-groves: The first lot are a lost cause. For human beings, that would be our watchman along with the thief he was apprehending."

Benton, who'd been tuning out the previous talk, regarded this news with interest. "What about our man? Is there any hope we'll get him back then?"

The Doctor let out a breath unhappily. "I highly doubt it. In his case it was deliberately attempting to overcome what it regarded as an obstacle or enemy. Having already learned from the destruction of the watchman's patterning, it is more likely to have dissolved his patterns than to have preserved them. Also, if it had him available it would have been using him has a human shield before it ever had her. There hasn't been so much as a hint of anyone else, just Jo. It's learned a new trick, it seems."

The Brigadier ducked into the tent ahead of them. Benton paused by the Doctor, giving a grimace as he straightened his shoulders. "It's a hard thing, Doc."

"It is. Believe me, Sergeant, I never wanted any of your men endangered."

"They knew the risks when they signed on," Benton replied, slipping into soldier-mode.

The Doctor understood. "Yes. Well. We still have a chance to save Miss Grant. Let's not lose it." He ducked into the tent, the Sergeant following.

"What you said earlier. It's got her on a leash, you mean?" Benton asked.

"In more ways than metaphorically, yes."

"Is it true that it used her for a shield?"

"Yes. She could have been killed," he said grimly. "I expect it will try it again."

"No honour," Benton muttered darkly. "Hiding behind a helpless girl like that."

The Doctor didn't reply.

"So, Doctor. Tell us how we can deal with this creature once and for all." Lethbridge-Stewart circled around and sat down at his desk, tapping the papers in front of him with a newly sharpened pencil hard enough to leave a series of dark dents.

His scientific advisor took a seat then restlessly tipped back in his chair, letting it drop heavily back down to the floor. He leaned forward, taking the pencil right out of the Brigadier's hand to sketch on the back of a random report in front of him.

"Well, we know it is able to survive the conditions found within a meteor cloud, therefore it can withstand extreme cold, heat, light and darkness. I ruled these out from the start. It has demonstrated the ability to withstand significant physical impact as well."

The Brigadier frowned at the highjacked pencil. "I'm sure there's no need to make it complex. If we were to place high-quality explosives around the perimeter of…"

"Then you would do nothing but potentially feed it, Brigadier," the Doctor snapped. "This is a creature that at least partly lives off of vaporized minerals, remember?"

"What can we do, then?" Benton asked, trying to stop any further arguments.

"As I was saying…The original device I'd put together could either increase the intensity of its patterning or it could force a scattering of the same." He leaned back again, tapping the pencil briefly on his knees. "If attacked, it will be expecting to be scattered again. This means it should place Jo to the forefront. The first stage will take advantage of that likelihood. We will need a definite location established ahead of time so the equipment can be properly focused."

He leaned forward and sketched again as he spoke. The Brigadier tipped his head at the upside-down scribbling. "I expect the stone formation in its crater would be a prime target, as it is would have no compunctions about its familiarity."

"How will we get it to go there?" Benton wondered.

"I'll find a way to bring it there, I have some ideas already. Now. If we can initially direct a focused beam of the first variety, we should be able to increase Jo's own patterning to bring her as close to her former physical existence as we safely can. At the same time, a lower-level beam of the scattering light can be brought to bear on the creature, as Jo should now be visible enough to enable the men to keep it clear of her. Are you following me?"

The Brigadier and Benton, both angling to try to see the sketchings, nodded. "Will that free her?" Benton asked.

He looked up at them, his eyes intense. "I hope so. If she is gaining cohesion concurrent with the Perseid losing it, it should be forced to let her go, conserving its energy for self-preservation. She may be quite disoriented when she returns, the creature can produce a severe vertigo."

"I'll say," Benton muttered.

The Brigadier just nodded. "Right. We'll have men ready to catch or carry her, then."

The Doctor tapped the pencil on the table, then laid it down. Just as the Brigadier's hand moved towards it, he snatched it back up and drew some squares and arrows on him impromptu map, now edged in mathematical notes. "Good. Now we do something unexpected. The creature will be focusing its own energies on increasing and restoring itself from the scattering. We will also increase it…"

"But that makes it stronger…" Benton blurted out.

The Doctor gave him a look, silencing him. "Let me finish. We will increase it at maximum level for at most two seconds. One and a half should be sufficient. The beam will then be reversed. This will fold it up against itself, turning its own forces, as well as ours, against it. The patterning essence would essentially turn inside-out, especially if, and here's where some of your men come into it, Brigadier…"

"Yes?"

"Especially if at the same time the men are moving our boundary devices inward and turning them to direct at the creature, rather than each other. This will block it from outward expansion, and should push it even further in, folding it until the energy reaches maximum compression."

"Compression." The Brigadier considered this. "That's likely to cause a bang, then?"

"Yes, it's highly probable," the Doctor said dryly.

"Now, that much I can understand," the Brigadier replied with something like a twinkle. "We'll take precautionary measures."

"If only I had my TARDIS here…this wouldn't take half the time with my equipment. Still, now that I can see the way of it… Now go on, and leave me alone. I'm back to the tower. I've quite a lot of work to do and I don't want to leave Jo in that state a moment more than I have to."

He turned to go then suddenly whirled back. "Brigadier!"

"Yes?"

"This is going to take, shall we say, a generous helping of power."

"We'll make use of our generators…"

"Insufficient. More. Tap that house, the local power supplies, whatever you have available." He pointed at the scribbled-on papers significantly. "Our goal is to trap it at its landing site, so have the cables run down there."

"Very well. And Doctor."

"Yes?"

"My pencil."

"What? Oh." He handed it back, gave a small sardonic bow and swirled out of the tent.

The Brigadier looked at Benton, who was looking at the pencil. Alistair tapped it in his hand. "You heard him, Sergeant. Let's get to work."


	12. Chapter 12

**Part 11**

… _and leaves a shining furrow, as thy thoughts in me._

. . .

"So," the Brigadier said as he passed the biscuits, taking one for himself. "We have the cables laid, the boundary devices ready to be manned and mobilized to close in the circle." He glanced down at the list in front of him and checked something off. "And I take your word for it that those fraction beams of yours are functioning."

"Fractal," the Doctor corrected. "Yes. They should be in place within the hour."

"One thing I don't understand," the Brigadier said, looking over the paper again. "Here you've placed that amplifier whatsit that makes it stronger. Why would you want to make it stronger? Don't we want to weaken it?"

"You're forgetting we have more that one target. Anything with the fractal patterning will be amplified, anything at all. It will become stronger and more cohesive. This includes Jo."

"So we have to allow it to become stronger…"

"Because it will strengthen her as well, to aid her repatterning." The Doctor reached out to tap at the notes significantly. "It's once she's out, then the switch."

The Brigadier crunched his biscuit. "So we have a plan. But now - have you found a way to get it to go there, while we're there and ready for it? Much less right to the center? How do you bait a trap for a mathematical patch of light from outer space?"

The Doctor sat back and crossed his arms. "With me."

"What?"

"It thinks if it takes me in, absorbs who I am, it will gain some ability to restore itself to its home."

"Up in that meteorite cloud?" The Brigadier asked. "I thought that wasn't possible?"

He leaned forward and helped himself to another biscuit. "It isn't. But it thinks it is, and that is our advantage. Once we have everything in place, I will draw it in. I'll offer it myself in exchange for Jo, but only at the landing site."

"Is that wise?" Lethbridge-Stewart looked concerned. "Didn't it, well, take you over before? Seemed a nasty bit, that."

"Only partially. And that only because I was caught by surprise," the Doctor said firmly. "I have a better notion of how to deal with it now, and it is weaker."

He nodded. "The men will be deployed to cover you, just in case. I insist."

"They aren't to use those lights! Jo will be with it."

"Understood. But I don't want you left alone with that creature." The Brigadier would take no argument.

The Doctor knew it. "Very well," he acquiesced after a pause. "Just keep them well back. As soon as everything is ready, then."

"You could go down, lend the technician a hand, speed things up a bit."

He made an impatient noise. "I can't. I believe it's tracking me, Brigadier. We need to keep its attention away from what we're setting up, which is why I've been nowhere near the work. I don't want to lead it in until the trap is set. One other thing: assuming we are successful, Jo will need help. As I mentioned before, I expect this will have worn her out at the very least, and she's likely to be very disoriented."

"Our medic will be at hand."

"But there is more to it than that." He paused as if weighing his words. "In the form she's currently in, she's communicating on an emotional level. Anyone who comes into contact with her will need to be aware that she is very vulnerable, an open book, so to speak. Emotive impulses are not always rational. They need to not only treat her gently, but not judge her or come to rash conclusions over what they sense."

"None of our men would hurt her."

"They might not mean to, Brigadier. But they are, after all, only human. And she must live with knowing whomever it was had seen her heart, so to speak. Do you think you could withstand the full, honest, open exposure of all of your deepest inner feelings, good and ill, to another human being?"

The Brigadier's eyes darkened. "I see what you mean." He considered the problem with a frown. "It would take a simply tremendous amount of trust, and even then…"

The Doctor leaned forward, intent. "So keep them away, as much as possible. I will care for her, if I can. But I must place my trust in you, Alistair, if I am unable. Can you do this?"

"To the best of my ability, I will," he promised.

Blue eyes met determined hazel ones probingly, but found no guile or false courage in the words. "Thank you."

The radio crackled.

"Trap 2 to Greyhound," Benton's voice came over the speaker.

"Greyhound here," the Brigadier answered.

"Rabbit season is now open, sir."

"Roger that. The Prince is going out rabbit-hunting, he'll send the rabbit to its hole. Remember the Princess is still with it; all game-wardens need to stand down until the Prince says otherwise. One more thing: As of now, game-wardens are not to approach the Princess unless the Prince or myself are physically unable to reach her first. That's an order."

"Yessir! Understood. Trap 2 out."

The Doctor stood, pulling on his cloak. "I'm off then."

"Best of luck, Doctor," the Brigadier said. "And…be careful."

"When am I ever not?" he replied sardonically. Giving his friend a half-salute, he headed out into the twilight garden.

. . .

The Doctor came out from the Brigadier's tent assuming he was being watched. He immediately set about trying to radiate vulnerability and hesitation, not an easy task for someone with habitual confidence, but better too much acting than not enough.

No-one was near, aside from the guard stationed by the Brigadier's tent. He headed into Trelissick garden. All around him the light was fading, bleeding the color from the spring blooms, vague shadows still dappling through the leaves of the various trees. A small breeze ruffled the nearby hedges disconcertingly.

He made his way down the paths to a garden bench he'd chosen ahead, mainly for its isolation from the activity at the alien's landing site while not being too far to lead it in. He slowed to a deliberate meander, feeling his way along.

A casual survey of the small clearing still found nothing of note, but he doubted it would remain empty if he waited. Taking the bench, he slumped his shoulders to play the part of someone discouraged or drained. Men were concealed somewhere within surveillance, ready to drag him out of danger if needed; he tried not to think about them, inwardly directing his energies to broadcasting weakness and hopelessness, counting on the Perseid's ability to sniff out strong emotions. This had no doubt been honed by its exposure to Jo; indeed, if anyone could teach it about human emoting, it would be her.

It found him even sooner than he had expected, flickering into sight within a quarter-hour.

"As I thought," he murmured. "Tracking me. Well, here I am."

It did not try to conceal itself this time, but after the previous encounters it was reasonably wary. Keeping some distance from him, it positioned its silvery captive between them again, its trump card. He came to his feet, his gratitude at seeing Jo was still both present and alive added a genuine emotion amid the false.

Bracing himself for the effort, he took a breath and extended his hand. Jo's figure didn't reach for him, but he stepped up to meet her glimmering anyway.

"Don't worry, Jo," he said, hoping she could understand him. "I know what I'm doing. Trust me." That was all the consideration for her he could manage before he locked his mental walls into place.

He kept his hand out, outwardly inviting, inwardly steeled.

She backed away, but the alien gave a surge that pushed her right into his steady hand. There was a flicker of her fear/refusal, but he ignored it. The moment he sensed contact he shut his eyes and slammed a hard, clear message through her, straight to her alien captor: an image of the center of the landing site, a surrender, defeat, giving himself up in exchange for the girl's freedom.

He was only faintly aware of her reactions to this, he dare not let himself take the time to hear it. Slamming the mental door on the connection, he ruthlessly snapped it off before it could wash back, physically backing away at the same time so rapidly that he nearly stumbled over the bench.

It was done. The trap was baited. All he could do was hope he hadn't hurt Jo too much in the process, there'd been no way to warn her ahead of time.

He slowly began walking down the slope towards the landing site. After a moment, he was aware of a sparkling, a movement in the same direction through the trees - towing a no-doubt unwilling Jo with it. The line between the two of them was in constant fluxuation. He had to smile slightly at the sight, grateful she still was showing some spunk. Woe to any sentient being who tried to take Jo where she did not care to be taken. He could vouch for that one.

Further up the slope, Benton lowered his binoculars and glanced back at his communications man. "To all units: the rabbit is following the Prince to its hole. Tighten the noose, commence radio silence."

All around the area, soldiers quietly crept from their hiding, each pair taking hold of what appeared to be a lighted box on a post, moving the humming boundary-devices inward several paces. They continued this at measured intervals, the circle within them growing smaller each time, closing in on the small crater.

. . .

At the landing site, the Brigadier directed the double-checking of power leads, orientation and mounting of the Doctor's machines. They'd been mounted in the midst of rhododendron shrubs old enough to be small trees. The job done, the men obediently melted back into the surrounding woodlands and watched expectantly, no sound but the rustling leaves and faint lapping of nearby waters heard.

The crater itself had gathered a significant amount of water by now, forming what amounted to a small lake or pond, the odd porphyry rock formation in the center of it. The top ridge was just above the water, looking for all the world like a floating stone crown. Fading daylight shone on the breeze-ruffled waters. It would soon be night. Lethbridge-Stewart looked up from his concealment at the silhouetted electrically-powered gadgetry the Doctor had assembled and wished for one good-old-fashioned stick of dynamite.

At least he didn't have to wait long.

He saw his scientific advisor first, his white hair and white shirt front picking up the faint light. He was moving at a slow but steady pace down towards them, and perhaps fifteen metres behind him, a patch of shining mist was flowing among the shrubs and over the grasses. Up on the slope above he noted a brief silhouette of one of his soldiers against the darkening sky, quietly moving the boundary inward and ducking back down.

. . .

The Doctor reached the edge of the crater, pausing at the water's edge, quelling an impulse to survey the surrounding landscape to assure himself the Brigadier had done his part. Nothing for it now but to go ahead. He turned, watching the Perseid net of light approach. Whether it was starvation or from struggling to contain Jo, it was obviously weaker. The light generated was nearly all the lower fractalization levels, silver and white. It displayed mere streaks of the mid-level gold and none of the high-complexity red.

He braced his feet and mind, flipped his cloak back out of the way and once more held out a hand.

He expected it would pull Jo forward and force her between them again, making her the conduit. Perhaps it was emboldened by his apparent defeat or by the proximity to its own arrival point; whatever the cause, this time it simply came straight at him. He gritted his teeth as it rushed him, the glow starting up his hand in ribbons of frost and fire. He forced it back off, swaying slightly on his feet. The communication was stark: it intended to force him to the center of the crater, where the rock rose up, and there it would consume his thoughts and knowledge, from the inside out. There it would find a way to restore itself…

He broke the contact, but not before he sent back his own firm condition: Give up the girl first.

It pulled back slightly and they regarded one another, Perseid and Time Lord. Analytically he noted its effort at breaching the agreement had weakened it even further, not that he was unaffected. His hand tingled and burned where it had touched, and the mental effort had already brought on a headache.

The silver line was contracted, pulling in the leash. Passing the Doctor, the pair drifted out over the water-filled crater to the center, reflecting with a sparkle that might have been worth admiring under other circumstances. It pushed its captive up to the center.

He stepped tentatively forward in the mud, unsure what it was doing. Its light ebbed low. Was it going to release her, then?

With a sudden flare, a streak of silver and gold shot towards him, striking him square in the chest.

. . .

Watching from the side, the Brigadier had frowned in concern as the Doctor fought off the initial attempt at his hand. As the new bolt hit his friend, he saw him stagger again and slide down part of the incline of the wet crater with a muddy slither, stopping up to his knees in water, his eyes tight shut in concentration, his hands clasped to his chest. He slid again, deeper.

Alarmed, the Brigadier decided the creature wanted to have its cake and eat it too. Not honourable, not at all. First it most damnably used a young woman as a shield and now it was trying to break a gentleman's agreement. The fact that they themselves were hardly planning on keeping up their end of the deal didn't seem to matter at the moment. Besides, in spite of the Doctor's saying otherwise, he still wasn't entirely convinced the thing wasn't just wanting to eat them.

He turned to the lieutenant who waited to throw the switch on the machine mounted above him, the man had his eyes riveted on him, waiting for a signal. The Doctor's plans were going badly. He raised his arm to give the go-ahead when he heard the Doctor's voice, hoarsely.

"Now, Brigadier!"

The circle of rock in the center of the crater abruptly lit up, awash in a translucent, watery, kaleidoscopic light. The Brigadier could see the Doctor squinting, shielding his eyes with one hand, his other extended out as if to intercept the force the creature kept intermittently throwing at him. He was trying to make his way to the center, wading heavily forward, now up to his waist with his cloak trailing out behind him in a widening furrow.

Within this first magnifying, reinforcing beam the silvery mist that was Josephine Grant began to solidify, taking on more of her own form. She appeared to be half-draped over the edge of the mounded rock, or possibly kneeling. Apparently forgetting her, the Perseid creature also flared up in the light but turned all of its force on the Time Lord, bringing a muted cry from the Doctor as he battled off its new strength. The reflecting waters surrounded his dark-clad figure within a burst of light.

The Brigadier counted for what seemed like an interminable two seconds and chopped down with his hand. The beam shut off, replaced immediately with the secondary one, shining out in a narrow, blue-green sweep to focus on the young woman who lay in the center of this improbable lake.

And the young woman was there, within that light, her form taking on solidity and color and humanity more with every passing heartbeat.


	13. Chapter 13

**Part 12**

 _Now folds the lily all her sweetness up,_

 _And slips into the bosom of the lake:_

. . .

Within that bright glow, the silver chain that held her finally snapped. Pulled back to her proper form, Jo Grant finally regained the form of the human woman that she was meant to be, still clad in the light jacket and slacks she'd been wearing when she had been transformed. Partly kneeling, she promptly collapsed, tumbling with a splash from the rock circle into the waters of the small lake.

The Brigadier signaled the cutoff of the secondary beam as everyone instinctively moved toward the water to reach her. He heard the Doctor calling out, "Keep them back!" and Sergeant Benton's voice snapping out a command that stopped the men who were on the verge of entering the crater.

"Take over, Benton. You know what to do," he said shortly. The Doctor was having troubles getting to her, with that creature still grappling with him, and he had a promise to keep.

Lethbridge-Stewart plunged into the muddy, dark waters, drawing in a breath at the chill of it. He was opposite the Doctor and as such hoped that creature would not notice him. Strongly half-pushing, half-swimming the distance, he focused solely on Jo's limp floating form, lit only by the shine of the alien who had so recently held her in its power. The water was over four feet deep in the center, and the bottom too soft for good traction. He wished he'd taken off his boots.

Gratefully, she was mostly-face-up, and moving. His heart had tightened when she'd fallen like that, fearing the worst. Reaching out, he took ahold of her, then turned and placed a supporting arm around her shoulders to draw her away, out of the waters as rapidly as he could.

She fought him. And even with the Doctor's warning to him, he was astonished by the strange almost-electrical current he felt coming into him through her, confused emotional surges of fear, determination, retreat, fatigue, timidity and an overwhelming protective, frantic concern and care for the Doctor. There were other feelings, running deeply. He felt like a man who'd accidentally stepped into a woman's private rooms, or found a lady weeping in a corner when she wanted no one to know. It was most awkward. Mentally, he tried to look the other way, to let it roll off of him.

The other surprise was that even in her weakened state she tried to get away from him. She kicked and struggled. He shifted his grip, but she flailed at him, half-garbled something into the water then slipped out of his grasp and promptly went under.

Alarmed and frustrated, he pulled her back up, coughing, still fighting. She was trying, ineffectually, to reach the Doctor, her own alarm running high. He grit his teeth at the contact between them, wondering if it went both ways and hoping it did not. With an effort, he focused solely on just getting them out.

Splashing up through the slippery, shallowed edge, he managed to forcibly tow her in. Reaching, he went to lift her out of the water but she rolled, coughing, pulling away from him, ending up on her face at the edge of the crater with her shaking hands grasping at the bedraggled remains of grass roots edging it. He let her go.

"Can you pull yourself up, Miss Grant? We need to get out of the water," he gasped. He was lightheaded, uncharacteristically emotionally shocked, and his hands shook too. It was most disconcerting. He wanted to help her, but at the same time he dare not touch her again. As the Doctor had said, it was a matter of trust.

She didn't speak but obediently pulled herself up, across the mud, over the crater's edge where she lay, completely drenched, curled up and trembling.

"Now!" he called to Benton.

. , .

Only two minutes, perhaps, had elapsed since the Brigadier had gone into the waters after Jo, but it felt like an eternity to the Doctor who was still having to keep that pulsating creature at bay. Unable to reach her, he'd had to trust to Alistair with her safety, forced to shut out even his concern for both of them as he fought to keep body and mind from being re-formed, invaded, absorbed. The more it had learned, the more he had to work at blocking it, and it was very, very determined. He was grateful it had been weakened, in spite of the confidence he'd shown the Brigadier he was being sorely put to the test.

Once he knew Jo was in the Brigadier's hands and headed for safety he changed from trying to reach the center to trying to get away from it, knowing what was coming. If the signal came, it meant Jo was all the way out, safe. His own safety was up to him.

Wrapped around the central stone circle like an unearthly fountain of light, the changing silver-gold webbing knotted and swirled, trying again and again to get some hold on the Time Lord to reel him in. Slowly he struggled back away from it, slipping on the muddy bottom, weighed down with water and half-blinded. The water washed around his knees as he neared the edge.

"Now!" he heard the Brigadier's voice calling.

The strengthening, focusing beam returned. The weakened alien soaked up the patterned light as greedily as a dry sponge, swelling and brightening. It gathered itself up, flaring from silver to gold, tipped with red, bulging as it prepared to a launch out at its prey.

"Two! Three!" came Benton's voice in the darkness. And the light changed.

The Doctor slipped and staggered up out of the crater onto his knees as the beam was reversed, folding the hapless alien's power against itself, turning its patterning inside-out. All around the perimeter the men manning the now-close boundary devices turned them inward, cutting off any chance it had of expanding out or up to escape the beams, scattering and dissolving any rays that shot outward.

Surrounded and forced inward at high energy, it thrummed and crackled in the air. Slowly compressing downward, down to a struggling, pulsating singular bright point, no larger than a softball at the center of the rock ring.

. . .

On the other side of the crater, Jo uncurled, crying out for the Doctor. The Brigadier knelt beside her, his hands hovering over her helplessly, not knowing if she was still 'an open book.' He finally did the only thing he felt he could do to truly help: he took over command of the machines keeping the creature at bay and entrusted her into Benton's care, the Sergeant blinking in surprise at the stern instructions for her not to be touched, but to be guided in any other way possible to the Doctor's side.

"Let her hang onto a stick if you have to, but don't touch her!"

Benton knelt, looked down at her pitiful petite form and had to clasp his hands behind his back to keep himself from automatically reaching out to her. Jo tried briefly to get up, fell again and went to her hands and knees, single-mindedly crawling through the mud and trampled grasses towards the Doctor, reeling as she went.

"This way, Miss, this way," Benton coaxed awkwardly. Cold, wet, muddy and uncoordinated, Jo followed his voice, seeking the one point of stability she could think of in the spinning, tears on her face. The young Sergeant walked beside her half-crouched down, his generous heart wrung with worry and pity. He fished ineffectually for a handkerchief for her, only to find his was missing. "Just a little farther. This way."

The Doctor was still frustratingly dazed and disoriented. Annoyed and irritated at being so reduced, he tried to brace himself but still swayed as the curtain of curling whirlpool fractalizations finally pulled away from his mind. After an attempt at standing, he was forced to carefully lower himself back to his knees so he wouldn't fall. He covered his face with his hands, eyes dazzled. The air was filled with a heavy thrumming.

"Doc?" came Sergeant Benton's voice, uncertain and shaky. Jo had taken to little whimpers as she crawled, something that undid him as no alien invasion ever could.

"I'm all right," the Doctor responded automatically, in a strained voice. "Just give me a minute."

"Miss Grant. Er…she keeps trying to get to you. She's…"

"Good God, man. If it helps her, let her come!" He was just grateful she was moving at all, though he couldn't quite orient enough to turn himself towards her yet, not without falling over. That alone made him snappish.

"Doctor? She's coming up behind you. I don't think she can quite walk. Can't you do anything to help her?"

"Give her to me," he said. His sight was finally coming back, as well as his balance. He turned to the unhappy Sergeant and his charge immediately. Managing to get to his feet, he pulled Jo up with him, his arms protectively wrapping around her, trying to put some distance between them and the crater. Once she realized it really was him, she'd latched on with an almost desperate strength, her face buried into his chest. Her relief at finding him was almost stabbing in its intensity as it came to him, and bittersweet.

"I don't know how long we have," he told Benton. "It's going to…"

The Perseid creature imploded.

A cold rain of sparks, snowflakes and gold-red scintillations filled the air around them like alien fireflies, followed by a wave of severe vertigo as the creature dissolved into chaos. It washed over them like a whirlpool; all around, soldiers swayed and toppled about like marionettes with a child at the strings. The beam shut off.

Loosed from the inward force, the central font in the crater promptly exploded outward. Chunks of rock, water, mud and debris shot through the air, making the already disoriented soldiers cry out and duck for what cover they could find.

The Doctor barely managed to turn his back to it, pulling Jo down to shelter both her and himself with his wet cloak, chunks of wet mud and rock spattering into his shoulders. Benton hunkered next to them, shielding his face with his arms. He looked back over his shoulder at the water wildly slopping back and forth in the darkened crater. "It exploded!" he exclaimed as he climbed back to his feet.

The Doctor ignored this rhetorical observation and stayed down, cradling Jo close. She was shaking harder, and breathing too fast. He felt her emotions surging erratically within her combined with the encroaching numbness of shock. "Jo. Jo, look at me," he said, putting all the gentleness he could into his voice. She was holding his wet shirt, bunched in her fists so hard her hands were white; her face didn't lift from where she had burrowed it into his chest.

He stroked her muddied hair with his hand, coaxing. "Jo. Look at me, Jo. Just a look…"

She sniffled and turned her face upward, her brown eyes meeting his blue ones, trusting. "Doctor, I…I thought it was going to… you were…."

"Shh, shh," he said. "Just keep looking at my eyes, that's right. Be quiet now, don't try to speak. Good girl, Jo. Look deeply…Quiet, quiet… breathe, deeply now… that's it…"

Benton watched, fascinated, as she stopped trembling, her face and hands relaxing. Then her eyes, clear and at peace, drooped closed. The Doctor cradled her close and looked over at the Sergeant. "She'll wake up shortly, I just put her to sleep to stop her hysteria from turning to shock."

"Um," Benton replied, a bit startled at the method he'd used. "Do all your kind hypnotize people then? I thought that…" The Doctor gave him an irritated look that made him trail off and shrug an apology. "Sorry."

The Doctor looked down at Jo's quiet face. "It's a tool," he said softly. "As with any skill, it can be used for good or ill. I would never willingly hurt her."

"Of course not!" the Sergeant replied with surprise. "Didn't mean that. Sorry." He looked over to where the Brigadier was approaching. "Should we get her to the medic, then?"

"Soon, but not yet," the Doctor said. He looked up at Alistair's concerned face, only dimly visible. "Well, Brigadier, how did you like your explosion?"

The Brigadier snorted but didn't bother with a reply to the jibe. "How is she?"

The Doctor's face looked tired and lined but no longer worried. "Sleeping, for the moment. Until the effect of the transformation wears off, I'll need to care for her myself. You understand, I expect?" He met the other's eyes briefly, probing.

The Brigadier shifted uncomfortably and looked away. "Yes. Well. Wouldn't do it again, I must say."

"I hope you shan't have to. Still, I am indebted to you, on her behalf. Now, if you'll give me a hand up..?"


	14. Chapter 14

**Part 13**

 _So fold thyself, my dearest, thou, and slip  
Into my bosom and be lost in me._

. . .

Jo woke up, keeping her eyes shut as she tentatively felt out her surroundings. Nothing moved, nothing tilted, and she felt marvelously contained, within her own body as well as within the comforting pressure of her own weight on the bed. She opened her eyes, confirming her suspicion that she was in one of UNIT's tents, on a folding cot, warmly swaddled in a woolen army-issue blanket. The lantern light told her it must still be dark outside. How long had she been asleep? The last thing she remembered, there had been…. No, she didn't want to remember that right now.

Her overnight bag had been fetched from the room in the tower and a change of clothes lay neatly folded beside her. She blinked at the clothing, realizing beneath the blankets she was still wearing her muddied, damp pantsuit, that her hair was stiff with mud. Of course she thought; she vaguely remembered the Doctor not wanting anyone to touch her, his protectiveness towards her privacy outward and in, and he would not cross propriety to change her clothing himself.

There was a movement nearby and then he was there in front of her. He'd apparently nipped away just long enough to clean up himself, for his own wet, mud-caked outfit had been replaced with an impeccable set, a velvet burgundy coat and fresh white ruffles belying his weary face. His silver-white hair was damp but clean. She reached out a hand and fingered his ruffles with a small smile, then took his hand. It was such a relief to just feel his hand, solid and warm, after all the world had gone to feathers and mist for so long.

Feeling her gratitude and relief in that touch, he returned her smile, comforting. He analyzed her eyes, her skin tone, the strength of her emotive pulses. The empathetic effect was fading, he noted, normality being reestablished. Perhaps only a third of the intensity of before, and as she grew more alert he expected her own mind would naturally begin to repair the barriers that had been so broken down.

"How are you, my dear?"

"Better," she said. She studied him. "And yourself?"

"Better," he replied without elaboration. He gestured to the side of the room." I've ordered you a hot bath, if you're up to it."

"Oh, heavenly! Yes, I think I can manage, now that the world isn't all topsy-turvy for once."

"Here, let me help you," he said. "I'll fetch you something warm to eat while you wash up. Unless you need something now?"

"Yes, please!" she said, suddenly realizing she was starving. She pulled aside the blankets as she got to her feet. "I mean, a little to tide me over anyway. Goodness, look at me! I'm all mud!"

He chuckled at that. "Yes, you are. You should have seen the Brigadier and I, we were all a sight to behold. Thankfully, it was dark, little dignity lost. Here, there's biscuits, would that work? I'll get you something more substantial."

She took the meager biscuits and wolfed them down with a nod, heading eagerly for the bath. She started to pull the curtains shut.

"You'll want these," he reminded her, handing her the clean clothes.

"Oops," she said. "Now off with you." The privacy curtains pulled firmly shut around the tub. He smiled and went to get them some dinner.

. . .

The Doctor made sure she was undisturbed through her meal, the warm bath and now some hot soup and bread were all bringing a welcome pink back into her pale cheeks. Word had gone out that she was awake, of course, but not even the most curious dared cross her guardian. He'd been most firm that she was to be left with him, alone, and the Brigadier had surprisingly agreed without even a quibble, giving over his own tent for her use. Even the customary sentry was kept well away from the tent entrance.

After she'd eaten, he sat beside her on the cot and just let her talk, answering her questions, offering what comforting replies he could, letting her work through her ordeal in her customary way of rambling with words. More than once he had to reassure her that the alien was really gone, that she was well and safe, and that it was almost impossibly unlikely they'd ever encounter another one like it.

He casually took her hand as she spoke, testing the empathetic levels. They were still diminishing. It might be another day or two before she was completely healed in that area, but she would be safe with others soon.

"May I come in?" the Brigadier's voice asked from the doorway. He glanced at them sitting side by side, apparently holding hands, then quickly shifted his gaze to the far wall.

The Doctor smiled in understanding and patted Jo's hand, laying it down. He stood and gave a small bow. "Of course. You're most welcome, Brigadier."

Lethbridge-Stewart was still uncomfortable and apologetic. "Forgive me for the intrusion. I brought you a little something to cheer you up," he lay a plate of cream-cakes on the table then looked up at them.

"No, thank you," the Doctor said.

"What?" he asked. The Doctor and Jo were both looking at the plate of cakes with a revulsion usually reserved for greasy bloaters or obscure variety meats.

"Cream-cakes," Jo said. She looked at the Doctor and they both suddenly grinned, leaving the Brigadier wondering what he was missing out on. He wasn't really sure he wanted to know, things were awkward enough of late.

He retreated into formality. "I see you are quite recovered, Miss Grant?"

"Yes, thank you," she replied in a small voice, not meeting his eyes.

"I'll need you to prepare a report on these events, but you may wait until we've returned to London, naturally."

"Thank you," she repeated.

The Brigadier rocked on his heels, his hands clasped behind him.

There was an awkward silence.

The Doctor quietly took her wrist, as if checking her pulse. Though all but the strongest passing emotions were now faded safely away, he could still feel faintly the discomfort, regret, shyness and fear radiating through her hand. He was glad he couldn't pick up on the Brigadier's as well, though he could guess it. Humans always claimed they wanted complete intimacy with one another, but in practice they would go to any length to avoid that transparency. They were such fragile creatures, really.

Still, time would make it pass. They were very adept at forgetting.

He stepped forward. "Well, we'll set about packing up then. I've taken down some notes, they'll have to do until we can get it written up more fully. Have those cables all been brought in? I thought I heard one of them overload. Oh, and I was meaning to ask you about…ah, but all that can wait for later, can't it? Yes. It was kind of you to drop in, Brigadier. I'm afraid Miss Grant is still rather fatigued. I'll bring her with me, we'll leave for London this morning. If you could assign some men to dismantling the tower lab? Yes, thank you."

He steered the Brigadier out of the room as he talked. The hint was taken.

. . .

When he returned she was crying. She was trying to hide it behind her hands, but gave up when he knelt in front of her and wordlessly handed her his handkerchief.

"I don't know what's wrong with me," she grumbled. "Everything is fine."

"Is it?" he asked mildly.

She looked at him in disbelief. "That's not what you're supposed to say. You're supposed to tell me it'll be all right. That's what you always say!" She whacked him with the handkerchief and then suddenly buried her face in it and began sobbing in earnest.

He came up and sat beside her again, just letting her cry, even when she turned and muffled her own voice in the velvet of his coat.

"I was so…alone!" she wailed. He didn't reply, waiting patiently for the storm to pass.

After a few minutes finally subsided to sniffles. "I'm sorry, I'm being a foolish girl, just like you've said…"

"I'm sorry. I shouldn't have said that. You are anything but foolish, Jo." He meant it. He let her duck under his arm and quiet herself against him again, noting that even with the extremity of this post-stress reaction he was only slightly picking up the internal emotives. She was healing.

"It's not yet dawn. You need rest," he said soothingly.

"I don't want to be here, I don't. I don't want to be anywhere around…" She stopped. He didn't pry, especially as he had a good idea what the trouble was, waiting as her breathing finally slowed again from its ragged gulping.

"I'll take you back to London," he decided.

"Now?" she asked in a hopeful voice.

"If you like. Look at me." His voice was soft. She lifted her puffy, tear-streaked face up for his scrutiny. There were still circles under her eyes and she was obviously overwrought. "Relax," he said softly, humming a little. "Just relax. Get some sleep, Jo. You're safe, sleep now, rest. I'll take you home." She gave a sigh and drooped against him.

He stood, picking her up in his arms. "Come along now, my dear. Bessie is waiting."

He walked out the door, just holding her and letting her sleep in his arms. "Fetch her bag, will you, and bring it along to my car," he told the startled sentry.

He carried her across the car park, the sentry obediently following. The sky was just beginning to lighten. "You can tell the Brigadier that Miss Grant and I are returning to London. We'll see him there, later," he said, speaking over his shoulder. The soldier nodded.

. . .

She partially woke as they approached the car, her eyes looking around questioningly in the dim light, then settling on his face. "You'll still stay with me?" Her hand took a hold on his sleeve.

"Of course," he bent, settling her gently in the roadster's seat.

She didn't let him go; instead her arms suddenly went around him, her face against the crook of his arm. He half-stood over the seat awkwardly, but didn't pull away. Jo gave a small stifled sob. He glanced over at the sentry who uncomfortably deposited her bag in the back seat and stepped back to give them privacy. The Doctor waved a hand, sending him off.

After a moment her grip loosened, though she still didn't quite release him. She began to softly ramble. "I couldn't… I mean, I knew the Brigadier was right there, that he just wanted to help me… I'm sorry. I guess… I mean, I just couldn't trust anyone, not even him, knowing that, well, everything! Everything was just all coming out, and everything I was feeling." She looked up at him. "I just wanted you. Just you. If the Brigadier knew, well I was afraid he would send me away, if he knew that… that…."

He gently shushed her with a fingertip to her lips. Her emotions were raw and still running high. As he had told the Brigadier, in his experience human emotions were rarely rational. She was just a child, this dear, fragile human girl, but he was very fond of her too. She buried her face into his ruffles again.

"Your heart is your own, but it's safe with me," he said softly, holding her, feeling her slowly relaxing once more in his arms.

"No one shall know from me. Come now, my dear. It's time to go home."


End file.
